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Portal to full text versions of reports, studies and articles on hydraulic engineering
On this page reprints are given (as pdf) of classical papers.

International papers:

Dutch papers in English:

Dutch papers in Dutch:

For other publications in Dutch from before 1953 is referred to the page: Hollandsche Waterbouwkunde (This page is in Dutch)

International papers

Bagnold, R.A.

In November 1935 it was announced in the Journal of the Institution of Civil Engineers that a Committee had been formed to investigate the problems of wave pressures on sea structures, and proposed preliminary investigations were outlined. Those investigations were duly carried out, and it was reported inDecember 1936 that they had indicated the value of small-scale model experiments and that a programme of such experiments had accordingly been drawn up in collaboration with the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research. The initial programme provided for 1 year's work, to be carried out by Dr. Bagnold. The main results were publilshed in the Interim report on wave-pressure research in the Journal of the ICE of 1939 (vol 12).

Blum, Hermann

Blum wurde 1931 an der Technischen Hochschule Braunschweig promoviert (Einspannungsverhältnisse von Bohlwerken), wobei er ein danach sehr verbreitetes baupraktisches Bemessungsverfahren für Spundwände entwickelte. Später war er bei der Hoesch AG in Dortmund, dem führenden deutschen Spundwandhersteller, der auch eine statische Berechnungsabteilung hat.
Zusammenfassung aus 1950: Beitrag zur Berechnung von Bohlwerken (Bautechnik 1950)

Hasselman et.al (Jonswap)

Report of the commission on the Joint North Sea Wave project {Measurements of wind-wave growth and swell decay during the Joint North Sea Wave Project (JONSWAP)}, as published in the Journal of the Deutsches Hydrographisches Institut, Ergänzungsheft 8-12. This document is the basis of the famous Jonswap spectrum.

Robert Y. Hudson

This paper describes the original tests by Hudson for the development of his famous formula on stability of armour units in breakwaters. The paper "Laboratory Investigations of rubble-mound breakwaters" was published in the Journal of the Waterways adn Harbors Division of ASCE as paper 3213 in September 1959.

Ramon Iribarren Cavanilles

Iribarren did quite some research on waves and wave-structure interaction in the period 1938-1947; but most of this research became only known to the rest of the world several decades later. For example he made a very basic study on harbour diffraction in 1941 (in Spanish).
In 1949 he published with Casto Nogales on the PIANC congress of 1949 a paper in French with the title Protections des Ports. In this article he describes how to compute refraction, diffraction and reflection in practical cases. Also he derives a critical slope; steeper slopes give reflective waves, more gentle slopes dissipate energy. This ratio has later been further developed by Battjes to what is now known as the Iribarren parameter (or surf similarity parameter).
In 1953 he published a paper (also with Casto Nogales) on the PIANC congress in French without a title (it is called only Rapport) on the interaction between waves and rocks on a breakwater. Here he defines the stability number H/Delta D. In fact the ppaper describes the work earlier done by Iribaren in 1938 in Spain (Una Formula para el calculo de los Digues de Escollera, published by M. Bermejillo, Pasajes). Also this work did not get much attention outside Spain. It was translated in 1949 in the "Bulletin of the Beach Erosion Board". On the basis of this work Hudson has developed his formula.
The original papers of Ramon Iribarren in the Revista de Obras Publicas can be found on their website https://ropdigital.ciccp.es/public/index.php. Type in the search box "Iribarren" and select "autor" in the second box.

Sergey Vladimirovich Izbash (Сергей Владимирович Избаш)

Izbash (1904 - 1986), born in Lausanne, graduated in 1929 for the Leningrad Polytechnic Institute and got his PhD in 1938. In that time he did research on the closing of rivers with rock and concrete elements. In 1939 he wrote:  Гидравлика производства работ по преграждению русла (Hydraulics of river damming), published by Госстройиздат, which contains the basics of his stability formula; but already in his publication of 1932: Постройка плотин наброской камня в текущую воду [Госстройиздат, 1932]  ("Construction of Dams by Dumping of Stones") this formula was outlined. later this publication is published in the transactions of the institute, as well as in an English translation (by the US army). 
He had to stop this scientific work during the second World War, where he was assigned to design fortifications. After demobilisation in 1942 he received a chair in Hydraulics at MEI (Институт Энергомашиностроения и Механики) in Moscow, which he kept until 1976.  Together with Heiti Haldre from Estonia, one of his PhD students, (Х. Ю Халдре) he wrote in 1959 the book "hydraulics of river channel closures" [Гидравлика перекрытия русел рек], published by Гос. жнерж. изд-во.  This book was translated by G.L Cairns of CIRIA and published in 1970 via Butterworth. In this books he gives an overview of his work and also describes the derivation of his formula (eq. 69 in this book).

Mansard and Funke

Paper by E.P.D. Mansard and E.R. Funke from the 17th ICCE 1980 (Sydney) " The measurement of incident and reflected spectra using a least squares method". The described method is at this moment the standard for determining the incoming wave on a structure in laboratory experiments (measuring with three wave gauges the wave spectra and split the signals in an incoming wave and a reflected wave).

M. Miche

A french engineer, who studied the behaviour of waves in shallow water. The full theory is developed in a series of three paper with the title:
"Mouvements ondulatoires de la mer en profondeur constante ou décroissante" (1944) and a follow-up paper in 1951: "Le pouvoir réfléchissant des ouvrages maritimes exposés à l'action de la houle." All these papers where published in the  Annales des Ponts et Chaussées.

Meyer-Peter, E., and Müller, R.

The basic paper on the famous sediment transport formula of Meyer-Peter and Müller, as published on the 2nd IAHSR meeting on 7 june 1948 in Stockholm, titled: Formulas for Bed-Load transport

Morrough O'Brien

The original paper of O'Brien on Equilibrium flow areas of inlets on sandy coast is a classical paper on the stability of tidal inlets and has been the basis of many developments. The paper was originally published int he Journal  of the Waterways and Harbors division of ASCE, february 1969.

Amreek Singh Paintal

The PhD thesis of Paintal: The probabilistic characteristics of bed load transport in alluvial channels is (University of Minnesota, 1969) is together with the thesis of Shields the present basis of all bed stability formulas.

Osborne Reynolds

In 1883 Reynolds published the results on his turbulence research. This is the basis of tthe Reynolds number:  An Experimental Investigation of the Circumstances Which Determine Whether the Motion of Water Shall Be Direct or Sinuous, and of the Law of Resistance in Parallel Channels The paper was originally published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, Vol. 174 (1883), pp. 935-982

Albert Shields

A digital copy of the original Ph.D. thesis of Shields (1936, in German). " Anwendung der Aenlichtkeitsmechanik und der Turbulenzforschung auf die Geschiebebewegung". Published in 1936 by the Preußischen Versuchsanstalt für Wasserbouw. (Application of similarity principles and turbulence research to bed-load movement). In this (very short) Ph.D.thesis Shields describes the development of the formula for stability of sand and gravel on a bed under flow conditions. We have also found an English translation of this thesis.

Georges Sainflou (1891-1936)

Digital copy (in French) of the paper of wave forces on vertical walls (Essai sur les digues maritimes verticales), published in 1928 in the "Annales de ponts et chaussées, vol 98, tome II, 1928(4) pp 5-48".

John F.A. Sleath

Dr. Sleath of Cambridge University developed a method to combine flow and wave action in order to determine the stability of stones under wave conditions. His paper on measurements on bed load in oscillatory flow was published by ASCE in the Journal of the waterway, port, coastal and ocean divisions, int 1978 WW4, pp291-307. Dr. Sleath retired from Emmanuel College of Cambridge University in 2005.

 

Dutch papers in English

Dronkers, Breusers, Vinjé, Venis and Spaargaren

Dr J.J. Dronkers, Ir. H.C.N. Breusers, Ir. J.j. Vinjé, Ir. W.A. Venis and ir. F. Spaargaren pubished in 1968  a series of papers on the" Closure of estuarine channels in tidal regions":

The papers were originally published in "De Ingenieur".

Johan van Veen

Ir Johan van Veen was one of the "founding fathers" of Dutch Hydraulic Engineering. In 1936 Van Veen did his Ph.D.-thesis work on the effect of the currents and sediment transport in the Strait of Dover on the stability of the Dutch coast. (Onderzoekingen in de Hoofden, in old fashioned Dutch, the Strait of Dover was called “De Hoofden”, this name is not used nowadays and only very few people know this). This work is the basis for modern coastal morphology. The thesis has an extensive summary of 25 pages in English.
In 1950, Van Veen's paper, "Eb- en vloedschaarsystemen in de Nederlandse getijwateren" (Ebb- and flood-channel systems in the Dutch tidal waters) was published. This paper should be considered as Van Veen's most important publication since his thesis. It summarizes the results of 20 years of intensive study of estuarine and tidal- basin morphodynamics in The Netherlands. The paper is testimony to Van Veen' s keen observational and artistic skills. His approach is nearly "Da Vincian" in the sense that he is not only a fascinated but also sharp observer of nature and tries to capture the essentials of the dynamic behavior of complex coastal systems in apparently simple sketches. Many of the natural systems that Van Veen studied have been regulated since; thus, this paper contains a set of irreplaceable, high- quality observations on the natural dynamics of tidal systems. Along with Robinson' s (1960) paper on ebb-flood channel systems, it forms an excellent introduction to the study of channel dynamics in estuaries, tidal inlets, and tidal basins. Unfortunately, Van Veen's paper was published in Dutch, with only a brief summary in English. Understandably though, the paper has received very limited recognition in the international literature. The present publication is a tribute to Professor Kees d'Angremond, who retired on November 28, 2001, from the chair of Coastal Engineering at Delft University of Technology. We have seized this occasion to publish an English version of Van Veen' s paper. The translation is annotated in order to put it in the perspective of our present-day ideas on coastal dynamics. It contains contributions by several researchers of our group. 

 

Dutch papers


Ir. A.G. Maris, dr.ir. J. van Veen, ir. J.W. de Vries and ir H.A.M.C. Dibbits published in 1956 a series of papers regarding the studies for the preliminary design of the Deltaplan. They describe the plan itself and the state of the works in 1956. The papers were originally published in "De Ingenieur".