EV 520 - River Mechanics
Catalog Description
An integrated study of river mechanics including the principles of open channel flow, and the fluvial processes associated with a mobile bed. Theory and analysis of open channel hydraulics include uniform, gradually-varied, rapidly-varied, spatially-varied, and unsteady flow conditions. Fluvial processes consist of sediment properties, dynamics of suspended and bedload sediment transport, adjustments in channel morphology and channel stability, channel regime theory and erodible channel design, and modeling applications.3 credit hours (lecture)
Prerequisites
- CE 390
Schedule
| Fall, 2009 | : | JS |
| Fall, 2010 | : | JS |
| Fall, 2011 | : | JS |
Textbooks and Resources
Course Objective
Provide an opportunity for environmental and other civil engineering graduate students interested in water resources engineering to build on their course background in surface water hydraulics to develop a strong working knowledge in open channel flow for both design and analysis. Introduce the student to the industry standard computer model for analyzing and designing open channels. This is a required core course for all Environmental Engineering and Agricultural Engineering graduate students; and technical elective course for civil engineering undergraduate students.Topics
- Open channel flow and its classification
- Open channels and their properties; continuity; energy and momentum principles
- Critical flow and flow measurement applications (i.e. Parshall flumes)
- Uniform flow formula and computations
- Open channel design using both maximum tractive force and velocity methods
- Concept and theory of gradually-varied flow; hand-worked emthods; special applications
- Introduction to and use of HEC-RAS computer model for determining water surface profiles
- Hydraulic jump characteristics
- Non-linear channel alignments
- Spatially-varied flow
- Introduction to unsteady flow concepts
- At least one field trip to visit local sites illustrative of topics covered and for work assignments
Professional Component
While new concepts and theories are introduced, this course has strong engineering application and design components in the environmental engineering proficiency area of water resources engineering. This course helps to prepare our environmental engineering students for professional practice in the following ways:
- Reinforces and ties together the principles and skills learned in the hydraulics course taught at the undergraduate level
- Gives both graduate and undergraduate students an opportunity to develop important design and analysis skills, including HEC-RAS computer analysis capability, which are highly sought after by local and regional engineering firms. Students who take this course can "hit the ground running" in both private practice and water management type government agencies such as TVA, US Corps of Engineers, and USGS.
- Prepares water resources, environmental, agricultural and other graduate students for understanding concepts and theories related to fate and transport of sediment and other contaminants in streams and rivers.
- Provides the fundamental concepts in surface water flow required for advanced study, such as unsteady flow analysis and modeling.
- Provides practicing engineers an opportunity to update their skills in open channel flow computer modeling.
Relationship to Program Objectives
This course focuses on giving our environmental engineering students confidence in specialized state-of-the-art design and analysis methods and contributes to the undergraduate education objectives (computer software), contributes a strong attributes toward achieving practice-oriented and competitive proficiency int he area of water resources.Last update: Wed Aug 12, 2009 3:07 pm by acostar