Sediment Transport Analysis Using HEC-RAS Model

The workshop will take place in person at CE 203 on the University of Arizona campus and will also be available online via Zoom at https://arizona.zoom.us/j/87620062304.

The course will be conducted in a multimedia computer classroom at the training facility, where each participant will have access to a computer preloaded with the course materials. A teaching assistant will be available on-site to support students in the classroom.

Sediment transport analysis is essential for predicting river geomorphic processes (i.e. sediment deposition, channel incision, platform evolution). This workshop is designed for water resource engineers, geomorphologists, and policy makers to gain the fundamentals of sediment transport theory and the application of HEC-RAS model for sediment transport analysis. Participants are expected to learn the basic principles of sediment transport, get hands-on tutoring on how to use HEC-RAS model for estimating channel changes and local scour at bridges, evaluating bank stability and toe erosion, practicing sediment transport simulation using HEC-RAS 1D Quasi-unsteady and Unsteady Sediment Transport Model as well as HEC-RAS 2D sediment transport model.

The course is divided into eight sections. The description of each section is summarized below:

Section 1: Fundamentals of Sediment Transport Theory: incipient motion, bed forms, mobile bed resistance.

Section 2: Sediment Load in Rivers: bed load, suspended load, and sediment transport equations.

Section 3: Methods of HEC-RAS 1D Sediment Transport Model: Exner equation, total load equations, selective transport, armoring layer, bed material composition.

Section 4: Application of HEC-RAS 1D Quasi-Unsteady Sediment Transport Model: sediment data, initial condition, boundary condition, maximum erodible depth, sensitivity analysis.

Section 5: Application of HEC-RAS 1D Unsteady Sediment Transport Model: Unsteady flow solver, boundary conditions, internal structure, convergence criteria, comparison to 1D Quasi-unsteady flow.

Section 6: BSTEM - Bank Stability and Toe Erosion Model: basal erosion, bank failure, bank erosion rate, application of BSTEM model

Section 7: HEC-RAS Hydraulic Design Function: general scour, local scour, abutment scour, bend scour.

Section 8: HEC-RAS 2D Sediment Transport Model: Bed material data, hiding function, boundary condition, hydraulic structure, 2D unsteady flow solver, advection and diffusion.

The course will provide hand-on training on how to use sediment transport models in HEC-RAS. Section 1 and 2 are the overview of sediment transport theories. Section 3, 4 and 5 summarize the methodology and application of HEC-RAS1D sediment transport models. Section 6 is the theory and application of bank erosion model. Section 7 is the theory and application of Hydraulic Design Function for estimating scour at bridge. Section 8 is the method and application of HEC-RAS2D sediment transport model. Section 8 also briefly describes other sediment transport models, such as SRH1D/2D, SWAT, KINEROS2.

Tentative Schedule

Course Material

Participants are expected to receive a USB that contains the latest HEC-RAS 6.5 software, HEC-RAS User’s Manual, HEC-RAS Hydraulic Reference Manual, HEC-RAS Example Problems, and Course Material and Additional Example Problems.

Biography of Instructor: Dr. Jennifer G Duan is a Professor at the Department of Civil and Architectural Engineering and Mechanics, the University of Arizona. She is also an active registered Professional Engineer in the State of Arizona. She is an international renowned leader is developing two-dimensional hydrodynamic model for simulating unsteady flow and sediment transport processes in riverine environment. She is an Associate Editor for International Journal of Sediment Research and Journal of Hydrology. She has published over 70 papers in peer-reviewed international journals in the area of computational modeling of flow and sediment transport processes. She has many years of teaching experience in open channel flow and computational hydraulics. To accommodate this short course, her research team has developed example cases originated from real engineering projects in the State of Arizona.

Host or Publisher Civil Engineering, University of Arizona