Spicer Group’s Hydraulic Survey Services Provide Information for Local, State, and Federal Agency Projects
In April, while the snow was still flying in the wind and spring was barely making itself known, Spicer Group surveyors in brightly colored jackets took cross section measurements along a waterway course running through a culvert beneath US-31 in Ferrysburg, MI.
The waterway meanders north to south through surrounding properties, also running beneath a nearby set of railroad tracks, before emptying into a portion of Smith Bayou and ultimately, the Grand River.
“Surveys like this one have been routine for Spicer Group for years,” Jeremy Dancer, P.S., a Project Surveyor for Spicer Group said. “We collect cross-section measurements that are attached to GPS coordinates along a pre-determined length of the waterway reaching up its banks.”
“Surveys like this one have been routine for Spicer Group for years,” Jeremy Dancer, P.S., a Project Surveyor for Spicer Group said. “We collect cross-section measurements that are attached to GPS coordinates along a pre-determined length of the waterway reaching up its banks.”
This survey was collected for the Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT), Dancer said, to provide measurements to help determine the correct size of culvert necessary for replacing the existing one beneath US-31. The data measurements the team collected included the location of the waterway, the depth of the water, how wide the watercourse was, and the location of structures upstream and downstream.
“The main thing we are doing is picking up how much water can be held upstream of the crossing so the amount of water coming through that crossing can be determined,” Dancer said. “This shows MDOT what is happening with the water as it passes through the waterway and how it is affected by different elevation changes in the land.”
Spicer Group CAD technicians then drafted the data out within the team’s CAD software before delivering it to MDOT.
For this project, Jacob Moyer, a hydraulic design engineer with MDOT, will use the data to develop a hydraulic model of the waterway flowing through the US-31 culvert in HEC-RAS, a US Army Corps of Engineers program.
“We use the survey cross sections and all the structure data that Spicer Group provided to put together a hydraulic model of the existing and proposed conditions. The proposed conditions will include a new properly sized culvert replacement following guidance in the MDOT Drainage Manual for the US-31 crossing,” Moyer said.
Upstream water pooling along the project waterway.
Top down overall view of the completed hydraulic mapping.
“A properly sized culvert passes the flow of water efficiently and reduces the risk of flooding upstream. We want to show an improvement with the proposed conditions over the existing conditions with the modeling, while making sure not to increase water velocities within the culvert or stream over a range of flood discharges,” Moyer said. “An efficient culvert will be big enough to pass the water without excessive water velocity to reduce the risk of downstream erosion or scour as well as reducing the risk of any flooding upstream of our project.”
“The information provided by Spicer Group for replacement culvert projects like this one is an integral piece of that puzzle,” he said.
“The information provided by Spicer Group for replacement culvert projects like this one is an integral piece of that puzzle.”