Impacts of Stream Bed Adjustments on Local Bridge Morphology

The goal of this project is to synthesize a hydrodynamic model with improved methods of representing sediment transport to better predict short-term and long-term channel migration for aggraded sand-bed rivers. Our team can rapidly and reliably collect detailed flow and topographic data and incorporating that data into the model will provide results that are more accurate and more quickly implemented than previous efforts. In addition, the model will be developed at a bridge crossing (Highway 281 over the Niobrara River) with a strongly aggraded streambed, a crossing that is of particular interest to NDOT because of the potential for abutment undermining, scour issues, and ice damage. The result of the project will be a documented strategy for rapidly collecting relevant field data associated with channel bed migration predictions, a detailed plan for incorporating that data into a hydraulic model with new modules for accurately simulating sediment transport and bedforms, and demonstrated short-term accuracy of the model at a field site that is of actual interest to NDOT. In addition, recommendations will be provided for collecting future data sets to validate the longer-term performance of the modeling approach. Along the way, channel migration concerns identified by the research team at the study site will be relayed to NDOT for possible mitigation efforts.

Language

• English

Project

• Status: Active
• Funding: $134,860.00
• Sponsor Organizations:

  Nebraska Department of Transportation

  1500 Nebraska 2
  Lincoln, NE  United States  68502
• Project Managers:

  Halsey, Lieska

• Principal Investigators:

  Admiraal, David

  Wood, Richard

  Roy, Tirthankar

• Start Date: 20220701
• Expected Completion Date: 20250531
• Actual Completion Date: 0

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Hydraulic equipment; Morphology; Sediments; Streambeds
• Identifier Terms: Nebraska Department of Transportation
• Subject Areas: Environment; Hydraulics and Hydrology; Research;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01849006
• Record Type: Research project
• Source Agency: Nebraska Department of Transportation
• Files: RIP, STATEDOT
• Created Date: Jun 21 2022 2:04PM