Water Resources: Hydraulics and Hydrology
Improvements in Modeling
There must have been a significant degree of improvement in modeling between the time
you started working in the Chief's Office and when you retired.
A:
That's some question! I would say that in this country, the technique and knowledge of
modeling improved a lot from 1946 to 1979. When I first went to work as an engineer,
the Waterways Experiment Station was still at its infancy. The Bureau of Reclamation
knew more about modeling, and they'd done more modeling than the Corps of Engineers,
or anybody else in the United States, and I think also anywhere in the world.
But the Bureau also was very limited in their modeling. They only did it for a few dams.
They didn't do it for flood control channels, high-velocity channels, tidal hydraulics, or
beach erosion projects.
A Prototype Testing and Hydraulic Analysis Branch was established at the Waterways
Experiment Station, with Frank Campbell heading it up. He had two or three assistants
working underneath him for many years. They gathered available information, analyzed
it, and produced design criteria and methods, which are published in Corps manuals.
They are used by design engineers, which has reduced the need for model studies. For
very important, large projects or one different than anything covered in the Corps design
manuals, then there certainly may be a need for additional model studies.
How much has the computer helped in all of this?
A:
The computer takes everything to the third decimal point much better than the slide rule.
recall working as a consultant for an engineering firm that was designing some river
channel work out in Riverside County, California. All of the calculations of water surface
in the river and how high the flood levees would have to be were sent in a report to me
for review. All of the computations were done by computer. When the water surface was
calculated for a discharge down 10 miles of channel, it was based on a few actual field
measurements for several discharges. Then, by using a computer, the few field
measurements were used as a basis for determining the design discharge water level at
several hundred locations along the 10 miles of channel. There were over 100 pages of
computer printout on that project, showing water levels to the third decimal point.
I checked the computer results by using my six-inch slide rule. Starting out with the water
level at the downstream end of the channel, I computed the water level to one decimal
point every quarter of a mile up the channel. The slide rule computations were within
Previous Page
