analytical study on the sedimentation at the entrance of breakwaters in caspian sea (case study: astara port)

sedimentation is an important and common problem in management of ports. the aim of this study was to set up the hydrodynamic modeling of the area to estimate the sedimentation rate using mike21. therefore, in this paper an analytical model is developed for studying sedimentation in astara port. the model is run in mike 21 flow model fm. the wind and wave sources which have been used in this study are ecmwf 2d and iswm project, respectively. also, for determination the rate of sediment transport are used kamphuis method and litpack model. simulation results have shown good agreements compared with field measurements and real observations. the numerical model results are obtained both before and after extension of the breakwaters. before extended breakwaters, a large amount of sediments entered to the channel and net littoral drift is directed from north to south. then, four variants for reduction of sedimentation are proposed and finally the best solution is determined. in proposed solution the problem of sedimentation in entrance of astara port has been removed.