Advanced Numerical Modeling and Experimental Methods in Coastal Engineering

Dear Colleagues,

Coastal and offshore environments face severe structural and environmental demands driven by accelerating climate change and extreme hydrodynamic actions. To ensure the resilience of vital infrastructure, the engineering community must rely on high-fidelity predictive frameworks. Historically, advanced laboratory experiments and Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) have been the pillars of coastal engineering. Today, the rapid maturation of data-driven methodolologies, such as physics-informed machine learning and digital twins, provides an unprecedented opportunity to unify these pillars, blending physical laboratory insights with computational frameworks.

This Special Issue aims to consolidate the latest breakthroughs in numerical, computational, and experimental methodologies, with special focus on the synergy between advanced CFD models, laboratory testing, and emerging artificial intelligence frameworks.

In the existing literature, computational simulations, physical laboratory tests, and data-driven methods are often treated as separate tools. This Special Issue is explicitly positioned at their intersection. We want to highlight research where these methodologies actively support each other, specifically, how rigorous laboratory testing validates high-fidelity CFD models, and how machine learning can accelerate these traditional computational solvers and experimental measurements.

We invite high-quality original research articles and comprehensive reviews addressing themes including, but not limited to, the following:

High-fidelity numerical modeling and multi-scale hydrodynamic simulations in coastal engineering.

• Laboratory measurements and innovative experimental testing protocols.
• Wave–structure–seabed interactions.
• Flow-induced structural responses.
• Digital twins for coastal infrastructure.

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Dr. Wengang Qi
Prof. Dr. Muk Chen Ong
Dr. Guang Yin
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Coasts is an international peer-reviewed open access quarterly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1200 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• computational fluid dynamics for coastal engineering
• machine learning for coastal engineering
• numerical modelling
• experimental methodology
• data-driven methods.