Ramón Iribarren

Ramón Iribarren Cavanilles Ing.D (15 April 1900 – 21 February 1967) was a Spanish civil engineer and professor of ports at the School of Civil Engineering (Spanish: Escuela Técnica Superior de Ingenieros de Caminos, Canales y Puertos, ETSICCP) in Madrid. He was chairman of the Spanish delegation to the Permanent International Association of Navigation Congresses and was elected as an academic at the Spanish Royal Academy of Sciences, although he did not take up the latter position. He made notable contributions in the field of coastal engineering, including methods for the calculation of breakwater stability and research which led to the development of the Iribarren number.

He undertook detailed research at several ports in the Bay of Biscay which were subject to extreme waves and frequent storms, and this underpinned much of his early research work. Iribarren recognised that many of the ports in the Bay of Biscay were insufficiently protected from severe wave and storm conditions, which had resulted in a number of shipwrecks and threatened the economic viability of the local fishing community, with whom he enjoyed a close relationship.

In the 1930s, much port and harbour infrastructure design in Spain relied on simply replicating methods used on previous projects, with the guiding principles for the design of new harbour and coastal projects often relying solely on a simple analysis of whether previous construction methods had been successful or not. Iribarren was dissatisfied with such a wholly empirical approach, which he considered did not take into account the effects of location-specific issues such as wave and sediment behaviour, and having identified this as a problem, he spent a number of years developing scientific and mathematical approaches which could be applied to specific cases, based on extensive research and an understanding of wave behaviour and coastal dynamics, in which he made extensive use of observation and photography.

He was instrumental in the development of a research facility for coastal engineering, the first of its kind in Spain. His work achieved international prominence and remains highly relevant, being subject to ongoing development and underpinning several contemporary design methods used in coastal engineering and coastal protection works.