HEC-RAS Pub & Grub - HEC-RAS 5.1 and Beyond

Don't miss this great opportunity to listen to and interact with the HEC-RAS Developers in a fun and casual atmosphere!  Gary Brunner, Cameron Ackerman, and Mark Jensen will all be speaking at this Pub & Grub on Feb 20, 2020 from 5:30 pm to 8:30 pm in Portland Oregon.  They'll be covering all of the latest features being added to the upcoming Version 5.1 and beyond!  Show up, get some food, grab a pint and enjoy!

This is a free event, but we need you to sign up on our Eventbrite page so we can get a good head count.  Space is limited.  Hope to see you there!

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/hec-ras-pub-grub-tickets-87987108811

Thanks to our Platinum sponsors Wolf Water Resources, Mead & Hunt, and Galileo and our Gold sponsors David Evans & Associates, OTAK, Geosyntec, and WEST Consultants.  Your generous contributions have made it possible to bring our guest speakers and provide the food.  A special thanks to the Craft Brew Alliance and pH Experiment for providing the awesome venue.  

HEC-RAS Pub & Grub 2! HEC is coming to town!

HEC-RAS...Portland...Food...Beer.  They seem to just go perfectly together.  That is why we're hosting...

HEC-RAS Pub & Grub 2

You will want to save this date!  On Feb 20, 2020

HEC's very own Gary Brunner, Cameron Ackerman, and Mark Jensen

will be joining me in Portland Oregon to speak at the next offering of the HEC-RAS Pub & Grub. The HEC-RAS developers themselves!  They're going to present all of the latest features coming out in the soon-to-be-released HEC-RAS Version 5.1 and plans for future versions.  

Bring your HEC-RAS questions and come join us talking HEC-RAS at this awesome venue over some food and drink.  

And as a bonus, the Craft Brew Alliance's pH Experiment will be on hand to share some of the latest innovative brews they have in the works.    And this HEC-RAS Pub & Grub will have a very special HEC-RAS-related musical feature you won't want to miss.  Yes, that's a teaser. 😊  

For now, just mark your calendar and keep an eye out for more details to come.  If you want more information or are interested in helping to sponsor the HEC-RAS Pub & Grub, please email me Chris.Goodell@KleinschmidtGroup.com or GinaRenee Autry at GinaRenee.Autrey@KleinschmidtGroup.com

Very fine 2D Modeling

Written by Mike Hross and Chris Goodell | Kleinschmidt Associates

Copyright © The RAS Solution.  All rights reserved. 

I'm a big fan of testing HEC-RAS to the limits.  What can it do?  What can't it do?  These are questions we should all ask at the beginning of a project.  Can HEC-RAS actually prove to be a useful tool in answering hydraulic-related questions for our specific problem?  Shortly after coming to work at Kleinschmidt I was posed with the question, "Can we use HEC-RAS to model a nature-like fishway?  And more specifically, can we extract data from HEC-RAS to inform us of velocities and shear stresses between the many boulders and in the many pools that make up such a complicated feature?"  The answer was YES!  Check this out:

Here's an example of making HEC-RAS work at a very small cell level, in order to get detailed results for design considerations.

And a zoomed in view:

The fishway is constructed using 11 concrete weirs and is approximately 300 feet wide by 400 feet long. The boulders are approximately 5 feet in diameter, with 2.25 feet projecting above the crest of the weirs. The gaps between the boulders range from 3 to 5 feet. In total, there are over 700 boulders in the fishway. 

For the simulation shown, the drop from normal pond to the tailwater downstream of the last weir is approximately 6.4 feet or 0.58 foot per pool. The fishway is passing 890 cfs, 237 cfs of which is spilling over the top most weir from the headpond and the remainder is being supplied by 5 overflow gates. The 5 gates have varying levels of submergence on their tailwater sides, depending upon each one’s location, and they are each passing from 108 to 137 cfs. The velocity varies throughout the fishway, but is generally less than 6 feet/second. The nominal cell size in the mesh is 3 feet but decreases to 0.75 foot on the tops of the weirs to capture hydraulics between the boulder gaps. The largest cells have sizes of 96 feet and are located primarily in the headpond away from the fishway. 

The model is run using the full momentum equation, with an eddy viscosity mixing coefficient of 0.44. The computational timestep is 0.1 second and the Courant Numbers max out at around 0.6, with the highest values being in the cells on the downstream sides of the gates where water is flowing into the fishway. The timestep is very small, but the model does not need to simulate a very long time since it is a quasi-steady model, meaning there are constant boundary conditions (a constant inflow hydrograph at the upstream end of the model and a stage hydrograph at the downstream end of the model).  The model achieves steady state in less than 1 hour of simulated time.  Model run-times averaged about 3 hours.  

McBreach Probabilistic Dam Breach Modeling Software

Fellow HEC-RAS modelers. Today is National Dam Safety Day.  Dam Breach modeling is a key component to a well-rounded and robust dam safety program.  If you're doing dam breach modeling, you need to check out McBreach. Probabilistic hydraulic modeling is where we're heading with dam breach analysis. Why not get a head start with McBreach. This is free software and works seamlessly with HEC-RAS.  https://spark.adobe.com/page/RXu9m2OZJFOuc/