Better Barriers Can Help Levees Withstand Wave Erosion

Hydraulic engineer Daniel Wren, who works at the ARS Watershed Physical Processes Research Unit in Oxford, Miss., partnered with ARS hydraulic engineer Carlos Alonso (now retired) and University of Mississippi research associate Yavuz Ozeren for his research. The team gathered data about wind and wave dynamics from a 70-acre irrigation reservoir in Arkansas. Then they took their data into the lab and designed several wave barriers that they tested in a 63-foot-long wave flume.

Their results indicated that a floating barrier held in place by two rows of pilings would provide the most effective embankment protection from wave action. Since the barrier was confined between the two rows of pilings, it could rise and fall with fluctuating water levels, unlike a barrier tethered to the bottom of the pond that might become submerged by rising water levels.

The team found that a two-pipe barrier was able to dissipate 75 percent of wave energy before the waves washed against the levees. The waves lost some of their force when they broke against the first tube and then lost even more energy as they broke against the second tube. The engineers also found that bundling several lengths of smaller tubing together to obtain an optimal diameter for the floating barrier was less expensive than purchasing one tube with a larger diameter.

Results from this research were published in the Transactions of the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers.

Read more about this work in the July 2010 issue of Agricultural Research magazine.

ARS is the principal intramural scientific research agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Media Contact

Ann Perry EurekAlert!

More Information:

http://www.ars.usda.gov

All latest news from the category: Agricultural and Forestry Science

Back to home

Comments (0)

Write a comment

Newest articles

Lighting up the future

New multidisciplinary research from the University of St Andrews could lead to more efficient televisions, computer screens and lighting. Researchers at the Organic Semiconductor Centre in the School of Physics and…

Researchers crack sugarcane’s complex genetic code

Sweet success: Scientists created a highly accurate reference genome for one of the most important modern crops and found a rare example of how genes confer disease resistance in plants….

Evolution of the most powerful ocean current on Earth

The Antarctic Circumpolar Current plays an important part in global overturning circulation, the exchange of heat and CO2 between the ocean and atmosphere, and the stability of Antarctica’s ice sheets….

Partners & Sponsors