November 16, 2021 - I would like to congratulate our student, Robson Pachaly, for completing his Ph.D. with a successful Oral Defense. His work included improvements in the performance of system-wide transient simulations in stormwater systems, CFD simulation of air-water interactions in shafts, and urban flash flooding simulations.
November 16, 2021 - I am glad to share that the ASCE Journal of Hydrological Engineering published our new work that focuses on a new and practical tool that helps in the optimized selection of GIP geometry along with stormwater detention facilities. This resulted from an effort led by Ross Ellis, with the contribution of Don Guy Biessan, Frances O'Donnell, and Benjamin Bowers. Thanks for the collaboration and the opportunity to work in this team.
October 22, 2021 - Thus far a good month for our collaborations with researchers in Brazil. First, the paper by Dr. Tiago Mattos, advised by Dr. Paulo Tarso Oliveira, was published in the Journal of Hydrologic Engineering. The topic is the impact of LIDs in urbanized catchments subjected to floods under climate change scenarios. Dr. Oliveira leads a very active research group at the Federal University of Mato Grosso do Sul, and I am glad to be working with them.
Then, a few days ago, our paper submission to MDPI Water was accepted. An interesting la-scale work on the pressurization processes in T-junctions in hydraulic systems. This is the latest collaborative publication between Auburn University and the Federal University of Santa Maria, with the participation of Dr. Pinto, Dr. Tassi, Dr. Allasia, and the students that led the experimental data gathering of this study. To our knowledge, this kind's first contribution is potentially very useful for those interested in the computational hydraulics representation of such complex flows. I am glad to be able to work with our engineering and research colleagues in Brazil, and hope to do so in the future.
September 25, 2021 - Our research group worked this weekend installing a few level loggers in the Moores Mill watershed to monitor the hydrological response following rain events. A few nice pictures are shown below.
September 16, 2021 - There are always discrepancies in experimental measurements, but a few are funny to read about!
September 3, 2021 - The paper led by Robson Pachaly (our Ph.D. student) and in collaboration with Dr. Allasia (Federal University of Santa Maria) has been published in the Urban Water Journal. Check it out.
August 31, 2021 - As a result of the MS Thesis by Ross Ellis, advised by Dr. Frances O'Donnell (chair), with Dr. J. Vasconcelos, and Dr. Ben Bowers, a user-friendly Green Infrastructure and stormwater detention optimization tool was developed. The tool makes use of Excel, EPA SWMM, and GAMS optimization software to perform its calculations. Details of the methodology are discussed in Ross Ellis MS Thesis and were recently peer-reviewed in a paper accepted in the ASCE Journal of Hydrological Engineering.
August 24, 2021 - By some accounts, the rainfall in Waverly, TN a few days ago have reached a total depth of 17 inches or 432 mm over 24 hours . Checking NOAA's Atlas 14 website it is possible to notice that the intensity of a 1000-year rain event (0.1% chance of occurring any given year) is only 11 inches (under 280 mm). Even when considering the 90% confidence interval, it was a much more severe rain event than the statistics predict. How will water resources engineers communicate to society the need to improve upon design practices proposed decades ago to cope with more dynamic and intense rainfall events?
July 28, 2021 - Pretty cool concept of generating hydroelectricity from tides as is shown here. We need to diversify energy generation and invest in the research of alternative energy sources.
July 28, 2021 - Indeed, the good, the bad, and the very bad! xkcd is great!
July 19, 2021 - Dr. Vasconcelos was invited to present one of the keynote presentations in the 2021 International workshop on Sustainable Urban Drainage. The event will be hosted both in-person for those attending in Ningbo, China, as well as remotely. The title of the presentation will be "Advancing the Applicability of SWMM to Represent Dynamic Unsteady Flows in Urban Water Systems". More details will follow!
July 9, 2021 - IAHR has organized a round table discussion on the future of hydraulic structures for communities, practitioners, and researchers. Moderated by Stefan Felder, we had the participation of a great ensemble of researchers, as is shown here.
July 1, 2021 - Jose Adriasola (Principal Engineer Hydraulics & Hydrology at Bechtel) has invited Dr. Vasconcelos for a lecture for the course "ICH3800 Tópicos Avanzados en Ingeniería Hidráulica" for students at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. Our presentation slides can be found here.
June 24, 2021 - Robson Pachaly (our Ph.D. student) work has been focusing on the calibration of CN factors for porous pavements. We have installed a more precise outlet which has been helping to determine what CN values would be more adequate to describe these types of stormwater green infrastructure.
June 14, 2021 - A picture from a recent field survey in stormwater structures in Jefferson County as a part of understanding the fast and dynamic responses of urban watersheds to rain events.
June 10, 2021 - We have initiated a new project sponsored by the Jefferson County Department of Health to study the hydrological response of certain urban areas that are experiencing flash flood events. We are making use of an interesting combination of field measurements and numerical modeling using hydrological/hydraulic tools. Keep watching for some results in the coming weeks!
June 7, 2021 - Very interesting presentations on the Municipal Wet Weather Stormwater Conference Huntsville Marriott at Space & Rocket Center. The link to the event is here.
June 4, 2021 - Next week we will have two presentations on the 2021 ASCE EWRI congress. the times shown below are on Eastern Time. The afternoon talk is part of a session where we will have talks on unsteady two-phase flows. Please join us! A detailed schedule of the congress can be found here:
June 1, 2021 - Merecido reconhecimento da IWA ao professor Marcos Von Sperling - http://abes-dn.org.br/?p=41586
May 31, 2021 - This is an interesting tool showing the drainage paths from CONUS to the nearby larger water bodies - Thanks, Felipe Penaloza! - https://river-runner.samlearner.com
May 3, 2021 - Contribution from our student Robson in collaboration with UFSM on applying ASD and customized Preissmann Slots within SWMM to represent surging in large stormwater tunnels: Surge predictions in a large stormwater tunnel system using SWMM
April 2021 - New research was approved by the Alabama Department of Transportation with PI's Vasconcelos and Anderson. We will be developing research on field characterization and hydrological estimation of scours in Alabama Bridges, through a research project recently supported by the Alabama Department of Transportation.
