FYFD

Tag: infrastructure

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    Who Killed the Colorado River?

    From its source high in the snowy Rocky Mountains, the Colorado River runs through two countries and five states on its way to the Gulf of California. Or at least it used to. The river hasn’t met the sea in decades. All that water disappeared into a complicated web of poor management, short-sighted policies, and human infrastructure, as this video from PBS Terra explores. Unfortunately, while the details vary, this story is not unique, and many rivers around the world are no longer completing their journey. The good news is that we can still change that and rehabilitate the landscapes we’ve lost. (Video and image credit: PBS Terra)

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    Building Underwater Foundations

    For bridges, deep-sea platforms, and marine wind turbines, engineers have to build secure foundations able to withstand extremely heavy loads. Just how do they do this? One technique — driven piles — is as simple as driving poles into the ground. This is the method medieval engineers used to establish the city of Venice, but the origins of the technique are lost to history. Driving piles compacts the ground around and beneath the foundation, enabling it to withstand far greater loads.

    In some applications, hammering piles just isn’t practical. Drilling piles is another common technique. In this method, the drilled hole is reinforced with an outer casing, then concrete is pumped in to harden. Drilled piles will work even underwater, as long as the concrete gets pumped in from the bottom. Then it can push water up and out of the casing without absorbing enough water to change its properties. (Video and image credit: Practical Engineering)

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    The Art of French Drains

    Civil engineers face a constant challenge trying to protect their structures from water — both above and below the ground. Subsurface water can build up enough pressure to lift and damage structures, so engineers use subsurface infrastructure — like French drains — to control the water underground. Despite the name (and my title pun), French drains have nothing to do with France. Instead, they are named for Henry French, an author who described their construction and use in the 19th century. These drains use a combination of rocks, mechanical filters, and perforated pipeline to guide subsurface water and drain it away from foundations. (Video and image credit: Practical Engineering)

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    Engineering the City of Venice

    In 452, Roman refugees established what became the city of Venice across a series of low-lying marshy islands in a lagoon. With no solid ground available, Venice has needed clever engineering for its infrastructure, as discussed in this Primal Space video. That started with building the first piles — which still survive to this day — by driving long timbers down into harder clay levels. Because these wooden poles sit entirely below the water and are capped with stone foundations, they are preserved against rotting.

    As Venice grew over the next thousand years, its citizens had other infrastructure problems to solve. When fresh water needs outstripped what could be delivered by boat from the mainland, Venetians redesigned the substructure of each square to capture, filter, and store rainwater. And to wash away waste, they designed tunnels that use gravity and the daily tides to flush out sewage. (Video and image credit: Primal Space)

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    Fish Ladders Keep Species Swimming

    Dams often use fish ladders to help migratory species make their way upstream without interruption. In this video, Grady from Practical Engineering discusses some of the considerations that go into this special infrastructure and what kinds of designs work for different species. The first challenge for any dam is attracting fish to the ladder, which is often done by regulating the water flow at the entrance to create the velocity and turbulence that fish look for when going upstream.

    Once fish are in the ladder, they travel up a series of jumps that break the dam’s elevation into manageable steps. Different dams use various baffle designs to create jumps suited to their local species and the way they like to swim. Calmer spots in each section give fish a spot to rest before they carry on. In well-designed systems, the vast majority (97%!) of fish that enter a ladder make it through to the other side. (Video and image credit: Practical Engineering)

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    Helping Fish Bypass Hydro Power Dams

    Many dams in the U.S. were built at a time when their ecological impact was not a major concern. But, thanks to ongoing efforts to study affected species and upgrade infrastructure, many dams now balance human energy needs with the needs of non-humans, like migratory fish populations. In this video, Grady from Practical Engineering takes us behind-the-scenes at McNary Dam in the Pacific Northwest, where special plans and equipment help adult fish swim upstream and juvenile fish pass downstream with as little impact as possible. It’s impressive just how widespread and thorough their infrastructure for letting fish and lampreys through is! There are even facilities to help naturalists track and study the populations passing through. (Video and image credit: Practical Engineering)

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    How Spillway Gates Work

    Dams and reservoirs need a way to control their water level, and for many, that’s managed using spillway gates. In this video, Grady from Practical Engineering introduces several types of spillway gates, including their advantages and disadvantages. As always, he’s got neat tabletop demonstrations of each type, and he digs into the practical issues engineers face when building, maintaining, and repairing these critical pieces of infrastructure. (Image and video credit: Practical Engineering)

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    When Reservoirs Run Dry

    With the ongoing megadrought in the U.S. Southwest, more and more reservoirs are reaching historic low water levels. So it’s worth asking: what happens when a reservoir runs dry? And what, exactly, does a reservoir do in the first place? In this Practical Engineering video, Grady tackles both questions and takes a look at the many disciplines — beyond just civil engineering — that go into making a functional reservoir. (Image and video credit: Practical Engineering)

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    How Canal Locks Work

    For thousands of years, boats have been a critical component of trade, efficiently enabling transport of goods over large distances. But water’s self-leveling creates challenges when moving up and downstream through rivers and canals. To get around this, engineers use locks, which act as a sort of gravity-driven elevator to lift and lower boats to the appropriate water level. In this video from Practical Engineering, we learn about the basic physics behind locks as well as some of the methods engineers use to limit water loss through the lock. (Image and video credit: Practical Engineering)

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    The Engineering of Culverts

    Manmade infrastructure often interferes with natural waterways, which is one reason civil engineers turn to culverts, those pipes and concrete tunnels you often see beneath roadways. As simple as they may seem, there’s a lot of engineering that has to go into these artificial waterways to keep flows from backing up and flooding roads. In this video from Practical Engineering, you’ll learn about some of those factors and see through demos just how they impact the flow. (Image and video credit: Practical Engineering)