CE 54000 – Open Channel Hydraulics

Credits and contact hours:

  • 3 credits
  • Lecture meets 3 times per week for 50 minutes per meeting for 15 weeks

Specific course information:

  • Catalog description: Energy and momentum principles, design of open channels for uniform and nonuniform flow, boundary layer and roughness effects, flow over spillways, energy dissipation, flow in channels of nonlinear alignments and nonprismatic section.
  • Prerequisites: CE 34000 or equivalent
  • Course status: Elective course

Specific Goals for the course:

  • Student learning outcomes - Upon successful completion of this course the student shall be able to:
    • analyze and solve problems involving flows in open channels
    • use of standard software, HEC-RAS and HY-8, in analysis of open-channel flow problems
  •  Relationship of course to program outcomes
    • Outcome 1: An ability to identify, formulate, and solve complex engineering problems by applying principles of engineering, science, and mathematics.

Topics:

  • Basic concepts
    • Terminology, one-dimensional flow models, pressure distributions, dimensional analysis.
  • Conservation equations
    • Mass, momentum, and energy balances for one-dimensional open channel flow.
  • Critical flow
    • Energy equation for gradually varied flow in a channel of arbitrary cross-sectional geometry. Critical flow and hydraulic control.
  • Flow resistance models and uniform flow
    • Chezy-Manning and Darcy-Weisbach flow resistance models. Design applications of uniform flow (e.g., best hydraulic section, gutter hydraulics). Simple and compound channels. Problems with variable roughness at a cross-section.
  • Gradually varied flow
    • Critical depth and normal depth lines. Water surface profile types. Sketching water surface profiles with only critical depth and normal depth lines.
  • Computation of water surface profiles
    • Direct-step and standard-step computational procedures. Boundary conditions. Problems involving changes in channel slope and cross-sectional geometry, and treatment of hydraulic jump. Introduction to HEC-RAS.
  • Dealing with hydraulic structures
    • Rating or performance curves for structures, such as gates and weirs. Free-flow and submerged conditions. HEC-RAS with simple hydraulic structures. Analysis of culverts, and introduction to HY-8.