Advances in Hydraulic Structures Engineering

The special collection on Advances in Hydraulic Structures Engineering is available in the ASCE Library (https://ascelibrary.org/jhend8/advances_hydraulic_structures_engineering).

Since ancient times, hydraulic engineering has been closely linked to hydraulic structures design, and thus the latter is one of the oldest fields within the civil engineering discipline. Designing a hydraulic structure can be particularly challenging because it requires a broad knowledge of structural engineering, fluid mechanics, geotechnical engineering, and materials sciences among other fields, as well as innovation skills because each hydraulic structure is somehow a prototype.

While the general purpose of hydraulic structures has not changed since early times, design methods and analysis tools have seen significant development in recent years. Nowadays, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) modeling and artificial intelligence techniques are common complements to the more classical physical modeling and direct measurement instrumentation to aid in analyzing complex fluid flow features around hydraulic structures.

These tools may help to better address new challenges caused by societal and climate changes. Underlying uncertainties require more flexibility in design to meet current project goals, while allowing for adaptation to new conditions. Existing hydraulic structures, in turn, are often older than their originally intended service life. This is a common problem all over the world and hydraulic engineers are more and more challenged to find innovative solutions to ensure a safe, ongoing operation into the future under consideration of social, economic, ecologic, and safety concerns. For this purpose, a close link between practice and research is required.

This special collection highlights a selection of papers presented at the 7th International Symposium on Hydraulic Structures [organized by the International Association for Hydro-Environment Engineering and Research (IAHR) Technical Committee on Hydraulic Structures], a forum for the exchange between both practice and research. It includes a total of nine papers addressing topics relevant to current hydraulic engineering challenges.

Topics discussed in this special collection include an investigation into physical modeling scale effects, new modeling techniques for the generation of dam-break waves in laboratories, and new instrumentation for air–water flows. Additional topics are also discussed, including the analysis of pressures on spillways, hydraulic characteristics of nonlinear weirs and their implementation at existing dams to meet increasing spillway discharge requirements, a lattice Boltzmann method numerical modeling approach for use in the design of coastal structures, and insights related to in-stream turbine applications.

Though the special collection covers a broad range of hydraulic structures–related topics, the papers presented represent only a sample of the many relevant topics and challenges facing the field of hydraulic engineering. We hope that it will provide a great overview on current developments, provide enjoyment and insights to readers, and hopefully help inspire the next generation of hydraulic engineering problem solvers as we strive for new solutions to old problems … and new ones. The guest editors of this special collection are grateful and honored to have contributed to this work and express appreciation to the Journal of Hydraulic Engineering for supporting this effort.