“…When designing a port, an extensive study should be conducted to ensure a smooth functioning of services, improve the experience of its users, and provide sufficient protection of the port. This study on the port, its structural components and its users should combine different approaches such as risk identification methods and extensive surveys of the site (Joubert and Pretorius, 2020;Trbojevic and Carr, 2000;Alises et al, 2014;McCartney, 1985;Hewitt and Martin, 2001), the development of design criteria on the different components of the harbour (Sawicki et al, 1998;Jahren and Ishii, 1995;Smith, 1988;Allsop and Hettiarachchi, 1989) and numerical and physical simulations (Wang et al, 2015(Wang et al, , 2017Tian et al, 2018;Lillycrop and Briggs, 1992;Groenveld, 1983;Pachakis and Kiremidjian, 2003;Cornett and Baker, 2018;Harris et al, 2009). We present a method by optimization to supplement these standard procedures.…”