Collaborative Effort to Develop an Advanced Research Hydrologic/Hydrology Roadmap

Purpose and Scope:

The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) organized a hydraulics forum at the Turner-Fairbank Highway Research Center in August 2007, to address the needs and direction of hydraulic research in context with the highway environment. The goal of this forum was to facilitate communication between research agencies and to brainstorm future advancements and strategic research plans. A draft summary report and strategic plan based on the outcome of the forum was distributed to the participants in September 2007.

The forum was funded by FHWA’s Exploratory Advanced Research (EAR) program. The objective of this EAR program is to stimulate research and development in high-risk, high-payoff projects that address known gaps in knowledge and technology. Participants were asked to search for additional long-term exploratory advanced hydraulic/hydrologic research topics and add them to the report.

The forum served as the media to have participants present and discuss various topics of interest such as current hydraulic research efforts, research facilities and capabilities, future advancement needs in instrumentation, and physical, numerical and super computer modeling.

Results:

Developed a roadmap for advanced hydraulic research needs
Identified advanced instrumentation needs that will bring breakthrough results in hydraulic physical modeling
Identified advanced computational fluid dynamics/direct numerical simulation modeling for hydraulic research using high performance computing
Identified advanced global climate models (GMC) to downscale hydrologic predictions to estimate future rainfall maps
Identified partners/facilities to collaborate on advanced hydraulic/horologic research projects

Presenter and Forum Convener:
Dr. Kornel Kerenyi
Research Hydraulic Engineer.
Federal Highway Administration, TFHRC
Office of Infrastructure R&D, T111
6300 Georgetown Pike
McLean, VA 22101
(202)493-3142 (Voice)
(202)493-3442 (FAX)
kornel.kerenyi@fhwa.dot.gov