Session: 05-01-01 New Concept and Marine Environment for OSU

Submission Number: 155271

Exploring Pilot Digital Twin Solutions for a Floating City in the San Francisco Bay Area 

Sea level rise poses a critical threat to many coastal areas, leading to increased storm surges and flooding risks that endanger human lives, cause land loss, and harm coastal biodiversity. Scientists estimate that rising seas will affect 10% of the global population residing in low-lying coastal regions and may displace 100 million people by 2100 [1]. However, the established construction codes and standards remain overly simplistic, and structural design software is single-object-oriented, failing to address the complex demands of coastal infrastructure design. Consequently, we propose a digital twin solution focused on pilot testing a "Floating City" in the San Francisco Bay Area, which includes floating houses on adjustable pile-supported platforms within a water area protected by breakwaters. Leveraging digital twin technology enables time-domain analysis of the floating city’s dynamic response based on both high- and reduced-order models, incorporating real-time observations on structural characteristics (e.g., natural frequencies), extreme weather events (storm surge), and long-term environmental data (sea level rise). This feedback loop enhances structural safety and supports more comprehensive operational assessments. In this paper, the feasibility of floating city digital twin application is evaluated in several aspects: structural safety under extreme weather conditions, performance and environmental benefits of nature-based breakwaters versus traditional sheet piles, viability of energy harvest from renewable resources such as wave, wind, and solar energy, and potential gains in cost reduction, delivery efficiency, and operations and maintenance. This pilot testing demonstration not only promotes collaboration among interdisciplinary stakeholders and private sector by offering a unique design approach for commercial-scale floating cities, but also aligns with state and regional initiatives such as the Justice 40 Initiative and Sustainable Development Goals.

Keywords: Digital twin, Floating city, Hydrodynamic analysis, Shoreline protection, Pilot testing, Coastal resilience.

[1] Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Sea Level Rise retrieved from https://www.whoi.edu/know-your-ocean/ocean-topics/climate-weather/sea-level-rise/

Presenting Author: Wen-Huai Tsao COWI North America

Presenting Author Biography: Wen-Huai is a Coastal Marine Designer at COWI with a diverse background in both academic institutions and engineering firms. His expertise ranges from small-scale projects involving numerical simulations and experimental verification of structural and hydro-dynamics to multi-million-dollar projects on coastal ecosystem design, floater and mooring system dynamic analysis, and offshore renewable energy development. He is a specialist in structural, coastal, and marine systems design, a digital-twin modeler, and a researcher.