Sediment Transport Modeling Webinar

For all you sediment transport enthusiasts,  Marty Teal is giving this webinar in October.  I highly recommend it.  He has a wealth of experience in sediment transport modeling and is an excellent instructor.  Go sign up if you want to learn more about sediment transport modeling in HEC-RAS!
-Chris G.
@RASModel



ASCE Continuing Education and ASCE's Environmental and Water
Resources Institute (EWRI) Present
An Introduction to Sediment Transport Modeling Using HEC-RAS
- A Live ASCE Webinar

Date: Wednesday, October 8, 2014    
Time: 12:00 p.m. - 1:00 p.m. ET         
Live Webinar Summer Special for ASCE Members
Individual Members receive the special reduced rate of $99 for any live webinars taking place through December 31, 2014.  Register by September 30 to lock in the special rate.
Reminder: Registration for this webinar ends on October 3rd
Pay a single site registration fee and an unlimited number of people in your organization can attend at that site.
Register Early as Space is Limited!  Questions? Call 1-800-548-2723.
Webinar Content

Two-Dimensional Capabilities of HEC-RAS

Check out this great RAS2D presentation that Kevin Denn gave at the NHEC Conference last week.

Vertical Walls-What are the Implications?

Written by Christopher Goodell, P.E., D.WRE  |  WEST Consultants Copyright © The RAS Solution 2014.  All rights reserved.

Many water surface profile software programs prior to HEC-RAS had a quirky rule against having perfect vertical sides.  In other words, you could not have two or more elevations at the same stationing.  A perfect example of this is a rectangular flume.  The workaround for the older software was to define the tops of the flume to be 0.01 ft or meters just outside of the bottom edge of the flume, like this:

In HEC-RAS, you don’t need to do this.  In fact, you shouldn’t do this as you’ll get the wrong answer.  Let me explain why...

Tuesday Tip of the Week–Column Header Select

Written by Christopher Goodell, P.E., D.WRE  |  WEST Consultants Copyright © The RAS Solution 2014.  All rights reserved.

Here’s a nice feature in HEC-RAS input tables that will save you a little bit of time.  Let’s say you want to highlight an entire column of data.  Maybe you want to delete all of the values in that column or paste in a block of data.  Or perhaps you want to highlight all of the cells so that you can perform an operation (multiply by a factor, add a constant, etc.) to all the values in the column.  Instead of clicking and dragging from top to bottom in the column (this could take a long time if you have a lot of entries), click the column header.  This will highlight the entire column instantly, allowing you to quickly perform the desired task.  This feature is particularly useful when working in boundary condition hydrographs, or geometry tables, like Manning’s n values.

Exploring HEC-RAS: XS Interpolation Within a Reach-Part 2

Written by Christopher Goodell, P.E., D.WRE  |  WEST Consultants Copyright © The RAS Solution 2014.  All rights reserved.

The last post on XS interpolation gave an overview for reasons cross section interpolation may be necessary and a detailed description of Interpolation Option A:  “Within a Reach”.   http://hecrasmodel.blogspot.com/2014/05/exploring-hec-ras-xs-interpolation.html
This post will cover Option B:  “Between 2 XS’s”.  Between 2 XS’s simply means HEC-RAS will interpolate cross sections ONLY between two selected “non-interpolated” cross sections.  It will not interpolate over a reach.  Obviously the disadvantage here is that you have to interpolate between pairs of cross sections one-at-a-time, which could prove to be  a long exercise for a large model.  However, Option B has a huge advantage over Option A, in that you are able to control how interpolation is done, by drawing your own connecting Master Chords.  More on that in a bit.  First, to initiate interpolation with Option B, go to the Geometric Data window and select Tools…XS Interpolation…Between 2 XS’s…



When Option B is selected, the following window will open:

Tuesday Tip of the Week–Shift to Pan

Written by Christopher Goodell, P.E., D.WRE  |  WEST Consultants

Copyright © The RAS Solution 2014.  All rights reserved.

 

As most HEC-RAS users quickly find out, there are some convenient tools for managing your view in an HEC-RAS graphic.  Zoom In, Zoom Previous, Zoom Out, Full Plot, and Pan.  These generally work how you think they should and are available on all of the HEC-RAS graphics including the geometry schematic, profile plots, cross section plots, xyz plots, etc.  Click on Zoom In, and you can click once on the graphic to zoom in centered on the location you clicked.  You can also click and drag a box to zoom into.   Zoom Previous, takes you to the previous view extents.  Zoom Out allows you to zoom out similar to how you zoomed in. 

When checking input data in the geometry schematic, I frequently use the pan option.  Panning allows the user to click and move the view around, while maintaining the same view magnification.  This is particularly useful in spatially large systems if you want to move up and down your reach to check on bank station locations, placement of ineffective flow triggers, and cross section alignment.  The  pan tool allows you to “pull yourself” along the stream centerline, checking data as you go.  It’s also very convenient in the graphical cross section editor. 

There are two ways to get to the pan menu item:  you can right-click on the view and you’ll see a dropdown menu with all of the view options, as well as a bunch of display options.  Or you can go to the View menu option at the top of the graphic.  Either way, you are clicking a couple of times to get the pan feature.  Furthermore, the pan feature, when selected this way, remains active (you continue to see a “hand” for the cursor).  You have to go back to the menu and uncheck the pan option to get out of pan mode. 

 

 

An easier way to pan around, when you want to quickly view schematic data or output data in your graphics is to use the Shift key on your keyboard.  The Shift key is a shortcut for panning.  As long as you hold the Shift key down, your cursor will be a “hand” and you will be in pan mode.  Release the shift key and you are back to normal mode.  Try it out.  It is much easier to get around your geometry schematic to check data this way. 

Deleting Portions of HEC-RAS Cross Sections Quickly

Written by Chuck Davis, P.E., CFM  |  WEST Consultants
Copyright © The RAS Solution 2014.  All rights reserved.  


Ahead of the wide-scale implementation of the 2-dimensional (2-D) modeling module in HEC-RAS, I wanted to share a quick tip that will be useful for editing your 1-dimensional (1-D) HEC-RAS model to prepare to couple your 1-D channel with a 2-D overbank area. It’s common to have a cross section with a well-defined channel and a wide, shallow floodplain in the overbank adjacent to the channel. This can be seen in the figure below. As can be seen from this figure, flow in the channel (between the bank stations denoted by the red dots) will have to reach a stage of approximately ten feet before spilling into the left overbank.