9 march 2012 – The Port Authority of Salerno has entrusted Thetis, Engineering company based in Venice, with the performance of the numerical modeling analysis to support the design of a coastal defence intervention aimed at protecting from the incoming wave motion the Santa Teresa harbour, adjacent to the commercial port of Salerno. Thetis’ skills in the field of environmental management and sustainability, refined and tested by years of experience in the preservation of the fragile Venice lagoon ecosystem, are now exploited in a different but equally important context. The modeling, carried out in close cooperation with the designer, involved the computation of wave and current fields in proximity to the inlet and within the harbour and allowed to identify the best configuration among several possible alternatives. During the simulations, particular attention was paid to the wave motion along the inner wharf, to prevent overflow, but also to the way the new breakwater interacts with the coastal currents in the inlet area, in order to ensure access to the harbour in rough sea conditions. Further modeling simulations will be performed in the next future to optimize the final design of the marina to be built in the area. This is not the first time that Thetis, thanks to its skills and modeling capabilities in the coastal marine field, expands its range of activities in different contexts than the Lagoon of Venice. It’s worth recalling the design of marine works for the coastal protection of the archaeological site of Sabratha, in Libya, where the remains of the ancient Roman city, included in the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites, are directly exposed to marine aggression during sea storms. Or the modeling performed as part of the “Study of hydrodynamic and sedimentological characteristics of the Port of Syracuse and Augusta harbor”, in Sicily, to support the reclamation of the heavily polluted industrial site of Priolo and the overall design of the new Siracusa port facilities. On that occasion, along with the use of the wave propagation model (Mike 21 PMS Waves), it was also possible to use at its full potentiality the three-dimensional flexible mesh model (Mike 3 FM), both for the computation of the current fields and for the simulation of the morphological evolution of the silty seabed in the deepest areas. Moreover, the use of an appropriate modeling package (Litpack, developed by DHI Water & Environment just like Mike 21 and Mike 3) allowed to simulation of the past and expected future evolution of the sandy beaches overlooking the bay (Porto Grande) of Syracuse. All these activities show how Thetis, in its commitment to protect the environment through the development of new technologies, is determined to contribute to excellence in coastal environmental management in order to increase its capacity in the management of “complex phenomena”, first of all coastal defence from marine aggression, through an integrated engineering approach able to combine environmental protection with sustainable economic and social development. Press Office Press and External Relations Office Thetis SpA tel. 041 2406111 fax 041 5210292 Contact: Giannandrea Mencini giannandrea.mencini@thetis.it Mobile 347 2823781
