II. GOODYEAR FLOATING TIRE BREAKWATER DESIGN 



One of the earliest FB designs was the Goodyear Floating Tire Breakwater, 

 conceived by Richard Candle of the Research Division, Goodyear Tire and Rub- 

 ber Company, as an outgrowth of his automobile crash barrier research. The 

 Goodyear FTB is, in its simplest form, a flexible mat of tires riding the 

 surface of the water. The earmark of this design is the Goodyear module--a 

 set of 18 tires coupled in a 3-2-3-2-3-2-3 vertical fashion (Fig. 1). These 

 modules are bound parallel to one another to form a checkerboardlike mat of 

 whatever dimensions the designer deems necessary for the site. 



Because of its status as one of the first publicized designs, with the 

 help of the Sea Grant Programs, and the decision by the Goodyear Tire and 

 Rubber Company to allow the use of its design royalty-free, the Goodyear FTB 

 is now the most common type of FB in the Eastern United States. In the data 

 gathering efforts, more than 75 percent of all identified FB projects were 

 Goodyear FTBs . For this reason, this section is devoted solely to an exami- 

 nation of the effectiveness of the Goodyear design. Field experiences at 16 

 FTB sites are given in Appendix A. 



1 . Problem Areas . 



The survey identified 12 potential problem areas affecting the operation 

 of an FB. The operators were asked to rate the severity of each problem 

 according to the following scale: 



Never Minor Moderate Major Extreme 



(0) (1) (2) (3) (4) 



In the following discussion, each problem area is examined in turn. They are 

 ranked according to the average severity voiced in the surveys. These sever- 

 ity ratings are listed in parentheses following the title of each problem 

 area and are divided into separate saltwater-freshwater components (e.g., a 

 rating of 2.0/1.0 would indicate that this area posed moderate problems to 

 saltwater-based designs and minor problems to FTBs in freshwater) . 



a. Fouling Growth (2.5/0.8) . In saltwater, there is no practical way of 

 avoiding the weight problem posed by fouling growth if the FTB is in opera- 

 tion for over a year. The magnitude of the problem can be vast--one opera- 

 tor, a marine biologist at a research laboratory, noted that the dry weight 

 of fouling growth found on each tire was 54.5 kg ± 28.1 kg (120 lb ± 62 lb) 

 (unpublished research, D. O'Neil, Graduate School of Oceanography, URI) . He 

 suggests that the tires will sustain a maximum yield, beyond which excess 

 fouling growth will slough off. The greatest weight was due to barnacles and 

 mussels. While this may illustrate an extreme case, it does point up the 

 fact that a highly positive flotation system is required for the FTB to sur- 

 vive the weight buildup and a maintenance program is needed to occasionally 

 relieve the structure of this weight. Typically, this type of maintenance 

 includes divers hand-scraping the growth off the FTB or, in the north, hauling 

 the breakwater out of the water in the winter to let the cold kill the growth 

 and the elements scrub it clean. In freshwater, fouling growth is little more 

 than a nuisance problem with no indications that it adversely affects the 

 structure's buoyancy. 



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