Abstract
Since significant amounts of recycled glass may be used as a substitute of materials for beach nourishment in urban beaches, laboratory experiments were proposed to understand the performance characteristics of glass versus natural sand. A first experiment conceived the use of a physical model (3D wave tank) to obtain the characteristics of recycled glass and natural sand under the same wave conditions. A second experiment was conducted to determine the rate of abrasion and mass losses due to abrasion of glass using a tumbler machine. Analysis of results was made in order to compare the performance of glass and sand, and to determine beach profiles and reflection coefficients for both materials. Beach evolution was measured and the reflection coefficients were obtained for the conditions tested. Glass was also tumbled for 56 days to determine the rate of abrasion and mass loss. The results show that glass performs equivalent at this scale to the sand showing little variation in profiles and reflected wave energy. Mass wasting of glass seems to be stable at the end of the experiments, after suffering a considerable loss at the beginning. The present study shows that recycled glass can be considered for beach nourishment based upon its performance versus natural sand. Proper consideration should be given to recycled glass as beach material in areas that are "sand deficient."
Cruz Castro, Oscar (2003). Experimental study to determine basic performance characteristics of recycled glass as beach nourishment material. Master's thesis, Texas A&M University. Available electronically from
https : / /hdl .handle .net /1969 .1 /ETD -TAMU -2003 -THESIS -C78.