Student Members: Bangnhi Pham, Kacy Grundhauser, Christina Hoy, Jon Ellidor, Matt Fischer, Allison Dunbar, Andrew Davis
Faculty Advisors: Dr. Matthew Calhoun, Dr. Joey Yang
Project Mentor: Brian O’Dowd, PE
Description:
The Alaska Railroad Corporation (ARRC), a State-owned entity, operates and maintains rail facilities throughout the state of Alaska. One challenge ARRC faces is the biannual flooding caused by jökulhlaups (glacial outburst flooding) on the Snow River system near Seward, AK. These flash floods are a result of the high head pressure found under growing glacial lakes blocked by the glacier. Inflow to the glacial lake (snow melt/glacial melt/rain) exceed the lake’s outflow, which increases headwall pressure until sudden failure. This rips apart existing outflow channels, raising water levels and velocities, which in turn, floods and erodes the forested areas. The fast-moving water erodes banks, including banks around stationary bridges and other unmovable and costly objects. The flooding has a detrimental impact to the Alaska Railroad Track Structure and its ability to operate. The rushing water washes away the roadbed while taking culverts, ballast and sometimes railroad tracks with it. Damage from this flooding event typically forces the ARRC to shut down the tracks for days at a time, this impacts movement of freight and passengers moving through the area.
The intent of this project is to design for these seasonal flooding events to reduce ARRC’s losses and damage. The design team will be expected to make sound recommendations based on relevant engineering calculations while considering project functionality, cost, effectiveness’s and constructability. The design team may explore the expansion of existing facilities or the construction of control structures such as dikes, revetments, armored tracks and the like. The design team will also explore an alternate methodology of using large RipRap or Armor Stone to allow floodwaters to freely drain beneath the tracks while limiting destructive and erosive capabilities of the raging river. The project will require hydraulic modeling through a RipRap matrix to determine its most appropriate and effective gradation requirements, as well as evaluating sedimentation issues with the highly silt-laden glacial waters. The result of the project will be schematic design of several mitigation alternatives and an Alternatives Analysis Report.
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