Protecting infrastructure against flow-entrained debris - a new approach

飓风和海啸引发的沿海洪水或内陆山洪暴发等极端事件造成了大范围的破坏，夺走了数千人的生命，同时影响了所在地区的社区。日本2011年的东北海啸和美国2005年的卡特里娜飓风就是这种毁灭性事件的例子。如今，预警和疏散措施在很大程度上依赖于准确预测特定地点的潜在危险影响。无法预测泥石流冲击和荷载对建筑物的影响仍然是水利工程中尚未解决的问题之一。当前研究计划的主要目标是研究泥石流运动、泥石流筑坝和泥石流对结构物影响的机制，并为制定新的可靠的设计标准做出贡献。这里提出的研究想法是实地调查的观察和结论的直接结果，也是对现行设计准则和标准中关于碎片运动和撞击的规定的批评和缺乏清晰度/验证的直接结果。长期目标是将这项研究开发的新概念、方法和工具纳入泥石流负荷和设计需求参数的量化，这些参数可用于改进洪水易发地区基础设施的设计指南。来自加拿大其他赠款和独特实验设施的额外资金(Univ.(加拿大渥太华大学、德国汉诺威海岸研究中心和日本早稻田大学)将用于支持这一研究计划，预计申请者将在未来十年内继续开展这项研究计划。这项研究计划是世界上为数不多的研究计划之一，其结果最终将导致开发出可靠的设计指南和工具，供工程师、海岸带管理人员和规划者使用，以适当地设计位于洪水易发地区的海岸和水利基础设施。预期影响这一研究计划预计将是一项改变步骤的发展，它将通过纳入极端水流中携带的泥石流的概率行为，极大地提高预测极端水动力和结构上的泥石流负荷的工具和模型的准确性。突破实验水力学目前的极限，具有极大的潜力，可以显著改进工程师设计关键基础设施的方式，以在自然灾害发生时拯救生命和保护经济资产。申请人从以前的发现基金中获得的研究工作已被纳入新的ASCE7第6章抗海啸结构设计标准-预计这一拟议研究计划的结果将成为这些不断发展的标准的宝贵补充。最后，这项研究将培养3名博士、2名硕士和3名理工科学生，他们将获得高度期望的水利和海岸工程方面的高级技能。

Extreme events such as hurricane- and tsunami-induced coastal inundation or inland flash floods have caused wide-spread destruction and claimed thousands of lives while impacting communities located in their path. The Tohoku Tsunami 2011 in Japan and Hurricane Katrina 2005 in the US are examples of such devastating events. Nowadays, warning and evacuation measures rely heavily on accurately forecasting site-specific hazard potential implications at a specific site. The inability to predict the effects of debris impacts and loading on structures remains one of the unsolved problems in hydraulic engineering. The main goals of the current research program are to investigate the mechanisms of debris motion, debris damming and debris impacts on structures and to contribute to the development of new and reliable design standards. Research ideas proposed herein are direct results of observations and findings stemming from field investigations as well as of the criticism and the lack of clarity/validation of the provisions of the current design guidelines and standards with respect to debris motion and impact. The long-term goal is to incorporate the new concepts, methods, and tools developed from this research into the quantification of debris loads and design demand parameters that can be used to improve design guidelines for infrastructure located in flood-prone areas. Additional funding from other grants and unique experimental facilities in Canada (Univ. of Ottawa, Hannover Coastal Research Center-Germany and Waseda Univ.-Japan) will be used to support this research program, which is anticipated to be pursued over the duration of the next decade by the applicant. The results of this research program, one of the very few in the world, will ultimately lead to the development of reliable design guidelines and tools that will be used by engineers and coastal zone managers and planners to properly design coastal and hydraulic infrastructure located in flood-prone areas. Expected Impact This research program is expected to be a step-changing development which will dramatically increase the accuracy of tools and models predicting extreme hydrodynamic and debris loading on structures by incorporating the probabilistic behavior of debris entrained in extreme flows. Pushing the current limits of experimental hydraulics presents great potential to significantly advance the way engineers design critical infrastructure to save lives and protect economic assets when natural hazards occur. The applicant's research work from the previous Discovery grant has been incorporated in the new ASCE7 Chapter 6 design standard for tsunami resistant structures - it is expected that the results of this proposed research program will become valuable additions to these continuously-evolving standards. Finally, this research will result in the training of 3 PhD, 2 MSc and 3 BEng students, who will acquire highly desired, advanced skills in hydraulic and coastal engineering.