U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC)
34 episodes
1 month ago
Satisfy your curiosity and learn how some of our country’s smartest engineers and scientists are solving many of the toughest challenges facing the nation and the Warfighter. The U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC) is comprised of seven research laboratories across four states, and one of its greatest strengths is its ability to combine the expertise from multiple laboratories into powerful, cross-disciplinary projects. Each month, we dive into one of these complex problems across its broad civil works and military mission space and ask ERDC’s world-class researchers about how they are discovering, developing and delivering practical cutting-edge solutions that make the world safer and better.
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Satisfy your curiosity and learn how some of our country’s smartest engineers and scientists are solving many of the toughest challenges facing the nation and the Warfighter. The U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC) is comprised of seven research laboratories across four states, and one of its greatest strengths is its ability to combine the expertise from multiple laboratories into powerful, cross-disciplinary projects. Each month, we dive into one of these complex problems across its broad civil works and military mission space and ask ERDC’s world-class researchers about how they are discovering, developing and delivering practical cutting-edge solutions that make the world safer and better.
#29: Underkeel Clearance: Quantifying demand for USACE dredging
Power of ERDC
39 minutes 17 seconds
1 year ago
#29: Underkeel Clearance: Quantifying demand for USACE dredging
The ships calling upon U.S. ports have grown larger, and navigation channels must be dredged to greater depths to handle them. However, dredging is expensive, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) needs more data-driven tools to prioritize limited resources more efficiently.
Responding to this need, ERDC developed Underkeel Clearance. Applying newly available ship location data and combining it with other data points, this metric directly measures how often ship keels approach the bottom of a channel. By analyzing how ships are using the dredging USACE already provides and highlighting the areas with the highest volume of ships with limited clearance, Underkeel Clearance gives USACE waterway managers new insight to better quantify channel maintenance requirements. The project falls under the USACE Coastal Inlets Research Program.
We discuss Underkeel Clearance with Dr. David Young and Dr. Brandan Scully, research civil engineers at ERDC’s Coastal and Hydraulics Laboratory.
Topics include how dredging decisions have traditionally been made (3:07), how Underkeel Clearance can improve this methodology (5:33) and surprises that have emerged as researchers began analyzing Underkeel Clearance data (14:46). We also talk about how this tool could change USACE dredging operations (17:23), other use cases of this data (21:32) and what the future holds for the effort (33:47).
For more information on the Power of ERDC podcast, visit https://www.PowerofERDCPodcast.org.
Power of ERDC
Satisfy your curiosity and learn how some of our country’s smartest engineers and scientists are solving many of the toughest challenges facing the nation and the Warfighter. The U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC) is comprised of seven research laboratories across four states, and one of its greatest strengths is its ability to combine the expertise from multiple laboratories into powerful, cross-disciplinary projects. Each month, we dive into one of these complex problems across its broad civil works and military mission space and ask ERDC’s world-class researchers about how they are discovering, developing and delivering practical cutting-edge solutions that make the world safer and better.
