Meaning of rock armour | Babel Free

Definitions

Rock or other suitable material used to protect shorelines, streambeds, bridge abutments, pilings and other structures against scour and water, wave, or ice erosion.

UK, countable, uncountable

Examples

“Walk along the beach to where the rock armour begins, then join the sea wall[.]”

“Rock armour was first used on the line "in a very small way" after floods in 2005, and more extensively last year when an embankment had to be reinstated. "The destructive problem with flooding is when water washes over the railway and runs down the other side," explains Hinshelwood. "If it keeps coming, it starts to accelerate, to scour and create turbulence, picking up ever-larger material the faster it washes across. You can't stop it, but rock armour slows it to a point where it doesn't wash ballast or embankment material away."”

CEFR level