River ice periodically impedes winter tow traffic on the major inland waterways in the U.S. During ice periods, moving vessels continually re-break the ice cover on the navigation channel creating an accumulation of broken ice pieces known as brash ice. In the pools above navigation dams where water velocity is typically low, brash ice congestion may become severe enough to bring tow traffic to a standstill. This nearly occurred in January of 2001 on the upper Ohio and Monongahela Rivers where the Pittsburgh District of the US Army Corps of Engineers operates a series of 15 locks and dams. In response, the towing industry asked the Corps about the possibility of releasing extra water at dams to clear brash ice downstream. At the district's request, the Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory (CRREL) studied the problem in an effort to determine what flow levels and durations would be needed and to clear brash ice from the pools under a variety of scenarios. Based on observation and theory, CRREL developed relationships between discharge, time and brash ice volume cleared from the navigation channels above each gated dam in the Pittsburgh District.
Ice Passage at Gated Navigation Projects in the Upper Ohio River Basin
11th International Conference on Cold Regions Engineering ; 2002 ; Anchorage, Alaska, United States
Cold Regions Engineering ; 816-827
2002-05-08
Conference paper
Electronic Resource
English
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