PC based computer-aided training program for harbor structure design

The design engineers for harbor structures normally learned the trades from their company or self-educated at the beginning of their career. Due to this unsystematic education approach, each design company has its own design format and accumulated design databases. Therefore, the objective of this study is to develop a design program for personnel computer usage that enables young engineers to learn about designing of harbor structures such as caisson type of breakwaters. This program uses a unified design format written in MS Visual Basic for the user interface and the MS Excel for the actual design calculation. This program contains well developed GUI including drawings and input values as well as immediate display of calculated values. Moreover, the input values are saved as a text file so that it may be edited for various design conditions and process. Ultimately, this program allows optimization of the total costs among various design conditions. The program will greatly help beginning engineers to understand about the optimum design and overall design procedure.