NON-INTRUSIVE POINT GAGE FOR HYDRAULIC LABORATORY STUDIES

THE HYDRODYNAMICS AND FLOW-STRUCTURE INTERACTION ASSOCIATED WITH SCOURING AROUND BRIDGE PIERS IS A COMPLEX AND CHALLEN- LENGING PROBLEM FOR HIGHWAY ENGINEERS. THE HYDRAULIC LABOR-ATORY MODEL STUDY IS A PRACTICAL AND RATIONAL WAY TO BETTER UNDERSTAND THE COMPLEXPHENOMENA AND TO HELP SOLVING THE DESIGN PROBLEM IN CONNECTION WITH SCOURING . THE MAIN OB JECTIVE OF PHASE I WORK IS TO DESIGN AND FABRICATE A SMALL NON-INTRUSIVE ACOUSTIC ECHO-RANGING PROBE FOR MEASURING BED ELEVATIONS OF HYDRAULIC MODEL EXPERIMENTS NOW BEING CON- DUCTED IN THE FHWA HYDRAULIC LABORATORY, COMPUTER TECHNIQUESSOFTWARES FOR DATA ACQUISITION AND PROCESSING WILL BE DEVELOPED FOR THE PROPOSED ACOUSTIC SYSTEM. TEST AND EVALUA-TION OF THE ACOUSTIC SYSTEM WILL ALSO BE CONDUCTED. THE PHASE I WORK WILL PROVIDE A GOOD FOUNDATION FOR FURTHER IN- TEGRATION OF THE SYSTEM INTO A HIGHLY RELIABLE AND ACCURATE LABORATORY PROFILING/CONTOURING INSTRUMENT WITH SPECIAL AP- PLICATIONS TO FHWA NEEDS. THE TECHNIQUE MAY BE FURTHER EXTENDED TO FIELD MEASUREMENT WORK IN THE FUTURE.