In conjunction with the 2015 FLOW-3D Americas Users Conference in Denver, a tour at the Bureau of Reclamation’s hydraulic laboratory will be offered the morning of September 21 at 10-11:30 am. This tour is free with your conference registration, but you must sign up by Friday, August 28 in order to participate. The attendance at the tour is limited to 40 people, so be sure to sign up early! Foreign nationals will be required to provide their passport #. Others will need to bring a government ID with them (passport, driver’s license, or other picture ID like government badge). If you are visiting from outside the United States, please provide us in advance your passport number and full name as shown on your passport. On the day of the tour, foreign visitors should have their passport with them for checking in with the guard (not just a driver’s license or other ID). You can send this information to info@flow3d.com.
Logistics
For directions to the laboratory, please visit their website >
Flow Science will be providing transportation to and from the laboratory. A van will depart from the Hotel Monaco at 10:00 am and will leave the laboratory at 11:30 am. Lunch will be provided for all tour attendees back at the hotel at 12:00 pm in the the foyer between the Wine Cellar and Tokyo Boardroom.
Background Information
Since 1930, the Bureau of Reclamation’s hydraulic laboratory has conducted research and tested scale models of hydraulic structures and equipment critical to the development of western water projects. The lab has been a pioneer in the development of hydraulic equipment, structures, instrumentation, and design guidance and analysis tools for hydraulic, environmental and mechanical engineering. Reclamation has produced world-renowned manuals on Energy Dissipation in Hydraulic Structures, Cavitation in Chutes and Spillways, Air-Water Flow in Hydraulic Structures, Water Measurement, Canal Automation, and Fish Protection. Today the lab continues to apply physical and numerical modeling to address site-specific issues and pursue applied research that develops new water resource management tools in areas such as: environmental hydraulics, water conservation, dam safety, and hydraulic structures and equipment.
The lab features 65,000 ft2 of indoor floor space with up to 33 ft of vertical clearance, and a 240,000 gallon water reservoir located beneath the lab floor. Water is moved through the lab and the various models using a network of piping and a variety of pumps, including four 100-150 hp pumps, a high-head pump (650 ft), a high-flow (25 ft3/s) pump, and multiple smaller (10-30 hp) pumps. Hydraulic data is collected using a variety of meters and instrumentation, including venturi meters, acoustic-doppler velocimeters, water-level sensors, and pressure transducers, in combination with state-of-the-art data acquisition and analysis equipment. Permanent facilities such as a 44,000 lb weight-based calibration tank, a low-ambient pressure chamber (0.1 atm), a 3-ft-wide adjustable-slope (-2% to 8%) flume, a 4-ft-wide glass-walled flume and a 330-ft-long canal automation and training model further enhance the lab’s physical modeling and testing capabilities. The lab also utilizes complex numerical modeling and computational fluid dynamics simulations as well as field measurements as part of its hydraulic evaluation and testing program.
Manager: Robert F. Einhellig
Bureau of Reclamation, Mail Code 86-68460
PO Box 25007-0007
Denver, CO 80225
Telephone: (303) 445-2142
Fax: (303) 445-6324
E-mail: reinhellig@usbr.gov
