Support design for levee barriers suggested by department of agriculture

 

[caption id="attachment_13534" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Mississippi Delta"][/caption]

by Carol Forsloff - The Agricultural Research Service has come up a new design that could protect reservoir levees from erosion caused by wind-driven waves, that are anticipated could be useful in the Mississippi Delta. 

The new design, they say, could help save money where presently levee repairs can be $3 per foot and often needed five years before the building of a reservoir.  The findings are said to be able to lower maintenance and construction costs. 

 Daniel Wren, a hydraulic engineer who works at the ARS Watershed Physical Processes Research Unit in Oxford, Miss., partnered with others, ARS hydraulic engineer Carlos Alonso (now retired) andUniversity of Mississippi research associate Yavuz Ozeren for his research. 

Data for the research came from wind and wave dynamics of a 70-acre irrigation reservoir in Arkansas.  This data was examined in a laboratory and several wave barrier designs were tested that could withstand a 63-foot-long wave flume.

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.

This is the outline as it is described by the researchers in the article by Ann Perry in the official online edition of Agriculture Research.  The research indicates 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.

In addition, the team found that a two-pipe barrier was able to dissipate 75 percent of wave energy before the waves washed against the levees. This reduced some of the force of the waves when they broke against the first tube.  They lost even more energy as they broke against the second tube. 

Results from this research are available in the Transactions of the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers and the July 2010 issue of Agriculture Research, the publication representing scientific research of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.