Marina
World Magazine, March/April 2005
Over ten years ago a series of storms struck the coast of New
Jersey that caused severe beach erosion and property damage.
Coastal protection up until that point in time was driven by
the conventional technologies of rock and sand. Rock placed as
breakwaters or groins, sand used to replenish beaches providing
a strong measure of energy absorption.
It was well known at that time that waves carried within them
enormous amounts of energy, energy that can damage infrastructure
such as shoreline homes, marinas and harbor facilities. Traditional
means of shoreline protection just didn’t offer a solution
that dealt with that energy, in fact in most cases, they deflected
the wave force often times creating even stronger, more powerful,
and ultimately more damaging currents.
The Beginnings of an Idea
Up until the early 1990’s, the principals of a New Jersey
based company named Elemental Innovation, had designed consumer
products utilizing various molded plastic pieces. This father
and son business formed by Robert Bishop & his son Justin,
realized the infinite design possibilities with modern plastics,
and took advantage of it’s easy manufacturing and low costs.
Robert was an inventor and patent holder of many different products
during his career with organizations such as Goodyear and British
Oxygen. He passed his engineering knowledge along to his son,
and together the two set out to pioneer a technology that would
eliminate the energy that is found in waves. The idea was to
rid the wave of its energy, thus eliminating the destructive
force that it expels on coastlines.
Robert and Justin started by first examining the beach erosion
and damage caused by the current storms that ripped apart the
New Jersey shoreline. They decided to pursue a new approach to
wave mitigation, and started with massive concrete structures
designed to deflect wave energy. The first designs that Robert
and Justin came up with, were embedded directly onto the seafloor.
Concrete structures, while offering significant protection, can
be costly and undermined. After a thorough evaluation of concrete
as an option to dissipate wave energy, they began to focus their
attention on another rigid, strong material, steel. Extensive
wave tank testing revealed that steel structures would be an
adequate solution in diminishing wave activity, but corrosion,
weight, and cost make large shoreline works impractical.
After a few years, and several different designs, Robert and
Justin decided to shift back to their original roots in plastic
products and the design possibilities plastics afforded. They
would set out to design a wave attenuator that would offer the
wave dissipation of massive concrete, provide the strength of
steel, and offer something that neither material provided, portability.
The team started designing parts that were comprised of marine
grade materials such as rubber and composites. After many designs
and re-designs, the first unit that would be ready for installation
would be totally fabricated of plastic, contain multifacets for
water deflection, and be called Whisprwave™. This first system
was composed of modules that allow it to be manually configured
into several three dimensional shapes. The unit was also a buoyant
structure, so it would float in the water column and would not
sit on the seafloor. This unique design concept allowed the structure
to be configured for different applications. Whisprwave went
through several rounds of tank testing
at Stevens Institute of technology in Hoboken New Jersey, and proved to be quite effective
for port security applications and relatively low wave energy
environments.
While the Whisprwave design was adaptable to the environment
in which it was installed, it did prove to have some limitations
in performance that precluded its widespread use for coastal
beach preservation and marina/harbor protection. While the system
proved effective in short period, low amplitude waves, it was
not capable of effectively dampening long period, high amplitude
waves, Whisprwave has enjoyed a decent level of success since
it’s original design, and has been deployed for seven years
in various locations around the United States.
Not a Re-design, a Re-approach
After licensing the Whisprwave technology for a few years, and
then selling it’s design outright, Justin and his father
set out to create a more effective structure for longer period
waves typical of ocean conditions. After two years of design
work, they finalized a unit that was modular, inexpensive and
would prove very effective in attenuating long period waves.
The system is called HALO™, and like Whisprwave, is a floating
structure that does not sit on the seafloor. The unit, unlike
conventional structures, does not deflect or reflect wave energy;
rather, it employs a new approach, which allows the wave energy
to propagate through the structure. By directing the wave energy
into the rows of the structure, HALO is able to effectively set
up a progressive release of energy. This not only improves performance,
it increases the survivability of the structure, as initial impact
loads and in turn anchor loads, are greatly reduced.
Prior to initial tank testing of HALO, Robert Bishop passed away,
leaving the entire project completely in Justin’s care.
When he passed away, Justin had to make a decision to either
end the project, or continue on in his father’s memory.
Building a Business
Initially, Justin’s project and work on HALO was going
to lead he and his father into the traditional modeling, and
prototyping of the design. Now that his father was no longer
with him, Justin began to assemble a team of executives that
would add Marketing, Sales, and Business Development to Elemental
Innovation, and further his progress towards getting his project
in the water. The next step was to complete prototyping, and
have HALO tested in the same environments in which Whisprwave
was tested years earlier. What Justin saw during the initial
testing of HALO would prove to be a major breakthrough in wave
attenuation. HALO proved that for a very small structure, it
was capable of attenuating very long period, high amplitude waves.
Up until that point, floating wave attenuators have been known
to be limited in application to very low energy wave environments.
It is standard knowledge that if a floating structure were to
be used for long period waves, the structure would have to be
at least half the size in length to that of the wave being attenuated.
This would mean that in order to realize any appreciable amount
of wave height reduction, a structure would have to be relatively
large in size, therefore eliminating the benefit of portability.
HALO breaks through this size barrier limitation by uniquely
working with the waves energy instead of fighting it. The HALO
structure also sits deeper in the water column than any other
floating structure, thus providing minimal freeboard. HALO works
more like an underwater reef than a wave attenuator, and like
an underwater reef, large waves that overtop the structure tend
to be tripped up and spill over the rows of the structure.
The theory behind the HALO structure has been proven over several
years by way of extensive testing at Stevens Institute of Technology,
Old Dominion University and in cooperation with the US
Army Corp of Engineers (USACE). HALO has been proven to reduce the energy
in waves by an unprecedented 92.5%. By configuring multiple rows
of HALO panels, each site can have a customized structure to
deal with very specific conditions. Because HALO is rapidly deployable,
and tunable to the environment in which it is protecting, Elemental
Innovation is confident that they can offer a cost effective
solution to marina protection and beach
preservation unlike any
other product.
About Justin Bishop
Justin
Bishop |
Justin
Bishop, the inventor of HALO, serves as President and CEO
of Elemental Innovation, a New Jersey (USA) based engineering
firm dedicated to the design and implementation of environmentally
friendly products. His first generation wave attenuator, the
WhisprWave® has been deployed successfully for 7 years
in many locations in the US including a security installation
at
the Naval Amphibious Base in Norfolk, Virginia. Justin has
been designing products for the marine environment for 15 years
and
prior to working on HALO, developed and patented numerous products
including ocean wave energy converters. EI has been rewriting
the rules for wave height reduction/protection and is a trusted
solution provider for beach erosion mitigation, wave and wake
reduction, and security zone protection.
Contact Elemental Innovation, Inc.
Tel: +1.973.218.9880
Fax: +1.973.218.9881
Website: www.elementalinnovation.com
