Lee
Guild of Calamitous Intent
Probably not, but I had a thread at the old place, trying to decide if roll out concrete cloth was the answer to my problem.
I do agricultural runoff, water quality research. We use flumes in open channels to provide a fixed geometry we can measure volume and calculate velocity.
This one wasn't big enough.
We'd filled that eroded stream bank back in a couple times, added a bunch of sand bags, but eventually we'd have another wash out. I was hoping to use concrete cloth, even hunted down a couple suppliers after asking at the old place. If you'll recall the most of you told me it was a waste of time, and that the real problem was the undersized flume. I knew that, but I was looking for a quick fix.
After thinking on it a while, I decided that y'all were right, as much as I didn't want to spend the money or redo the work, quick fix wasn't the answer. After looking at the flow data we had, and talking to the flume manufacturer, we decided to almost double our flow capacity, and changed the flume design. These things are made to order and take months, then there's the glacially slow university bureaucracy for purchasing things, then on top of all of that was covid. So, about 18 months after deciding to finally replace the flume, we finally did.
Out with the old.
In with the new.
This should handle all but a Noah level runoff event. We went from 7500 GPM capacity to 14,100 GPM capacity. Also went from a trapezoidal flume to a cutthroat flume. The cutthroat has straight walls, so there shouldn't be anywhere near the amount of pressure increase at the bottom of the entrance to the flume that the trapezoidal had.
I do agricultural runoff, water quality research. We use flumes in open channels to provide a fixed geometry we can measure volume and calculate velocity.
This one wasn't big enough.
We'd filled that eroded stream bank back in a couple times, added a bunch of sand bags, but eventually we'd have another wash out. I was hoping to use concrete cloth, even hunted down a couple suppliers after asking at the old place. If you'll recall the most of you told me it was a waste of time, and that the real problem was the undersized flume. I knew that, but I was looking for a quick fix.
After thinking on it a while, I decided that y'all were right, as much as I didn't want to spend the money or redo the work, quick fix wasn't the answer. After looking at the flow data we had, and talking to the flume manufacturer, we decided to almost double our flow capacity, and changed the flume design. These things are made to order and take months, then there's the glacially slow university bureaucracy for purchasing things, then on top of all of that was covid. So, about 18 months after deciding to finally replace the flume, we finally did.
Out with the old.
In with the new.
This should handle all but a Noah level runoff event. We went from 7500 GPM capacity to 14,100 GPM capacity. Also went from a trapezoidal flume to a cutthroat flume. The cutthroat has straight walls, so there shouldn't be anywhere near the amount of pressure increase at the bottom of the entrance to the flume that the trapezoidal had.
