Scour around hydraulic and coastal structures – Hydraulic and Coastal Engineering Laboratory

Professor Jeremy Bricker and students Adna Saed, Mohamed Alshamlan, and Taeksang Kim run a lab experiment that is sponsored by the Ohio Dept. of Transportation (ODoT). They are modeling flow of water through a road culvert, which is a pipe that carries a stream through a road embankment. Where the pipe exits the road embankment, the fast flow speed can scour away the earth, and then cut back and damage or destroy the road. To prevent this, Bricker’s team is developing guidance for ODoT to design carpets of armor stone. They run experiments to determine what size of armor stone itself is stable in the flow, and how long the carpet of stone needs to be in order to let the water from the culvert spread out and slow down enough to prevent scour of the sand downstream. Jeremy Bricker is an Associate Professor in the department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. He and his students utilize hydraulic laboratory experiments, numerical simulations, and post-disaster field surveys to investigate the resilience of structures and infrastructure exposed to both increasing hazard due to climate change and increasing consequences due to expansion of development in coastal and flood-prone areas. November 21, 2023. Photo by Marcin Szczepanski/Lead Multimedia Storyteller, Michigan Engineering