Water Resources: Hydraulics and Hydrology
A:
When you asked did these people have influence on us, almost all of the people we met when
we were very young in Vicksburg and Jackson influenced us, stimulated our interest in
hydraulics, and encouraged us.
Because they'd be coming through looking at the models and.
The Mississippi Basin Model included five Corps divisions and about 15 districts.
Representatives of those Corps offices and the Office of the Chief of Engineers would come
to Jackson for annual meetings of the Mississippi Basin Model Board and the working
committee, and for other meetings to discuss tests of specific model sections. In listening
to them, we learned what the various districts were doing, their problems, the characteristics
of their rivers, things that you don't learn in school.
The first national conference for hydraulic engineers in this country was organized at the
University of Iowa in 1939; in the order of 200 people attended. That conference was
followed by five others at Iowa, in 1942, 1946 (while we were undergraduates), 1949, 1952,
and 1955. Attendance ranged from 150 in 1942 to 425 in 1949; the Corps was always well
represented. There weren't many people directly involved in hydraulics in this country at
that time and most people who were attended the Iowa conferences.The conference papers
were excellent, and there was much exchange of information. The conferences were a great
forum for interaction among hydraulic engineers. There were many basic questions; many
projects were under design and construction; we all learned from each other. The 1949
conference was very special. It was attended by 425 people, and the1 000-page proceedings
was published as a hardbound book by Wiley entitled Engineering
edited by
Hunter Rouse. The proceedings covered fundamental principles, hydraulic similitude, flow
measurement, hydrology, ground water, steady flow in conduits, water hammer, channel
transitions, gradually varied flow, flood routing, wave motion, sediment transportation, and
hydraulic machinery. That book was the basic reference book for hydraulic engineering for
many, many years.
In 1950, the Hydraulics Division of ASCE sponsored a hydraulics conference at Jackson.
Albert Fry, chief of the design division at TVA [Tennessee Valley Authority] and responsible
for the establishment of TVA's hydraulic laboratory at Norris, was the initiator of that
conference, and he was strongly supported by both Tiffany and
Irene and I both
served on organizing committees for that conference. The ASCE Hydraulics Division
sponsored a second conference in 1953 at the University of Minnesota, jointly with the
International Association for Hydraulic Research, and that series of conferences has
continued annually to date. Following the 1955 Iowa conference, Rouse concluded that the
need for annual hydraulic meetings was being met by the ASCE conferences, and the series
of Iowa Conferences was discontinued.