IHCantabria researchers participates in the PI-BREAK project, which objective is to develop ways to adapt the breakwater breakwaters

The project will develop ways of adapting the breakwater breakwaters with particular attention to their functionality and structural integrity.

The State Research Agency, under the Ministry of Science and Innovation, has granted a grant to the project “Predictive Intelligent system to optimize BREAKwater maintenance” (PI-BREAK) led by the Polytechnic University of Catalonia and in which research staff from the Institute of Environmental Hydraulics of the University of Cantabria (IHCantabria), in the call for R+D+i projects in strategic lines, in public-private collaboration of the state program oriented to the challenges of society, within the framework of the State Plan Scientific and Technical Research for Innovation 2017-2020, financed with funds from the European Union, through the NextGenerationEU call.
PI-BREAK addresses the challenge of extending the life of port infrastructures in several future operating/climate scenarios, introducing intelligent predictive maintenance to reduce risks and expand the safe operating space of breakwaters. The project will develop ways of adapting the breakwater breakwaters with particular attention to their functionality and structural integrity. Likewise, a series of low-carbon footprint interventions are planned to support automated maintenance decisions for port shelter works.
From this base, PI-BREAK intends to advance in the Spanish leadership in breakwater engineering, developing an aggregation of multiplatform monitoring tools and hybrid modelling that combine advanced hydraulic facilities, such as del and coupled numerical codes. Drawing on artificial intelligence, PI-BREAK will aggregate data and resulting simulations from multiple sources, linking short- to long-term scales (i.e., from storm events to decadal projections), along with a portfolio of interventions from sequenced maintenance to develop adaptation paths (adaptation-maintenance) for the critical infrastructures of the breakwaters. These itineraries will conform to a holistic framework for breakwater analysis and will be supported by an intelligent predictive maintenance system. This predictive maintenance will reduce the risks in operational and survival conditions, contributing to the reduction of infrastructure risk, the efficiency of port operations, the reduction of the environmental footprint and the well-being of coastal societies that depend on the systems.

The consortium led by the UPC, and in which IHCantabria participates, is completed by the Bilbao Port Authority and AZTI-Tecnalia. Puertos del Estado also engages in the project as a collaborating entity to incorporate its progress into the Spanish port system.

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• https://x.com/IHCantabria/status/1720081779019980869?s=20