engineering

Gulf Intracoastal Waterway West Closure Complex

Gulf Intracoastal Waterway West Closure Complex is a engineering topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Gulf Intracoastal Waterway West Closure Complex rather than just read about it. In short: The Gulf Intracoastal Waterway West Closure Complex is a part of the New Orleans Drainage System; it consists of a navigable floodgate, a pumping station, flood walls, sluice gates, foreshore protection, and an earthen levee. The complex was designed to reduce risk for residences and businesses in the project area from a storm surge associated with a tropical event, with an intensity that has a one percent chance of…

Key takeaways

Gulf Intracoastal Waterway West Closure Complex belongs to engineering; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Gulf Intracoastal Waterway West Closure Complex to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Gulf Intracoastal Waterway West Closure Complex from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The Gulf Intracoastal Waterway West Closure Complex is a part of the New Orleans Drainage System; it consists of a navigable floodgate, a pumping station, flood walls, sluice gates, foreshore protection, and an earthen levee. The complex was designed to reduce risk for residences and businesses in the project area from a storm surge associated with a tropical event, with an intensity that has a one percent chance of occurring in any given year. This project was operated for the first time on August 29, 2012, in response to Hurricane Isaac.

Location The project is located approximately one half mile south of the confluence of the Harvey and Algiers canals on the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway. The location is next to the Environmental Protection Agency's Bayou aux Carpes Clean Water Act (CWA) 404(c) area, a wetland area of national significance.

Features The GIWW West Closure Complex consists of a navigable floodgate, a pumping station, floodwalls, sluice gates, foreshore protection, and an earthen levee. The project also required the dredging of Algiers Canal, as well as the realignment of Bayou Road. Project challenges consist of maintaining navigation traffic on the GIWW (a Federal navigation channel with heavy commercial barge traffic) and the location of the complex in relationship to the Environmental Protection Agency’s Bayou aux Carpes Clean Water Act (CWA) 404(c) area, a wetland area of national significance.

A 225 feet (69 m) navigable floodgate When the gate is closed during a storm event, the 194,251 cubic feet per second (5,500.6 cubic metres per second) 11 bay pump station is required to evacuate the rainwater that is pumped into the Harvey and Algiers canals by 9 other pump stations along the canals. The pump station complex, which is the largest of its type in the world, consists of 11 each 5,444 horsepower Caterpillar engines. To minimize environmental impacts to the Bayou aux Carpes 404(c) area, the floodwall was constructed on the eastern edge of the wetlands, within 100 feet (30 m) from the western bank of the GIWW for a 4,216 feet (1,285 m). The floodwall starts north of the pump station and gate structure with a water control structure across the Old Estelle Outfall Canal, and extends southward along the eastern edge of the Bayou aux Carpes 404(c) area. A canal closure wall connects the floodwall and navigable floodgate on the GIWW. A protective berm was constructed on the channel side of the floodwall to protect it from barge impacts. Foreshore protection was constructed along the GIWW, adjacent to, but not within, the Bayou aux Carpes CWA Section 404(c) area and along the new earthen levee to prevent impacts due to discharges from the pump station. A new earthen levee has been constructed east of the closure complex and ties into the existing levees. Bayou Road has been realigned to provide access around the new levee on the protected side. Dredging of the Algiers Canal has been competed from the Belle Chasse Tunnel south to the confluence of the Harvey and Algiers canals, a distance of approximately 4.8 miles (7.7 km). Approximately 700,000 cubic yards of material has been excavated from the Algiers Canal. Consequently, the dredged material was used beneficially in a marsh restoration project in the Jean Lafitte National Historical Park and Preserve (JLNHPP) or placed in borrow sites near Walker Road. The GIWW West Closure Complex reduces the risk to a large area of the west bank by removing over 25 miles (40 km) of levees, floodwalls, a floodgate, and pumping stations along the Harvey and Algiers canals from the direct impacts of storm surge. The risk reduction surge barrier was completed by the 2011 Atlantic hurricane season with reduced pumping capacity. All project construction was completed in 2012.

Status Final approval of the Individual Environmental Report #12 for the GIWW West Closure Complex was completed on February 18, 2009. On May 28, 2009, the Environmental Protection Agency granted the US Army Corps of Engineers permission to modify the Bayou aux Carpes 1985 determination to allow for construction on the westernmost boundary of the wetland area. The Corps held a joint public hearing with the EPA to address all questions and concerns regarding the request for modification of the Bayou Aux Carpes 404(c) area. On April 17, 2009, the Corps awarded the base portion of the Early Contractor Involvement (ECI) contract to Gulf Intracoastal Constructors for pile load testing and pre-construction services. The ECI contracting method (also known as Construction Management at Risk in private industry) allows the construction contractor to work hand-in-hand with the Corps and the design team on plan revisions and construction sequencing that will improve the constructability and cost-savings of the project. Several more construction options have been awarded since April. Construction of risk reduction features began on 6 August 2009. On March 6 & 10, 2011, installation Archived 2011-07-14 at the Wayback Machine of the 653 ton ea. sector gates was completed. The Notice of Construction Complete was issued on April 8, 2014.

Sources

NOLA.com, Retrieved 2010-07-26 Engineering News Record Web Site Archived 2009-02-27 at the Wayback Machine, Retrieved 2010-07-26 US Army Corps of Engineers Web Site, Retrieved 2010-07-26 Pop Sci Web Site, Retrieved 2010-07-26 Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority West Web Site Archived 2010-04-21 at the Wayback Machine, Retrieved 2010-07-26

External links official website

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Gulf Intracoastal Waterway West Closure Complex

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Gulf Intracoastal Waterway West Closure Complex claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In engineering, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Gulf Intracoastal Waterway West Closure Complex before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Gulf Intracoastal Waterway West Closure Complex ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Gulf Intracoastal Waterway West Closure Complex

In research: Gulf Intracoastal Waterway West Closure Complex appears in engineering research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Gulf Intracoastal Waterway West Closure Complex in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Gulf Intracoastal Waterway West Closure Complex is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Buildings and structures in New Orleans, Dikes in the United States, Flood barriers, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Gulf Intracoastal Waterway West Closure Complex outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Gulf Intracoastal Waterway West Closure Complex in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Gulf Intracoastal Waterway West Closure Complex means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
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Frequently asked questions

What is Gulf Intracoastal Waterway West Closure Complex in simple terms?

Why does Gulf Intracoastal Waterway West Closure Complex matter?

Because it connects several engineering ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Gulf Intracoastal Waterway West Closure Complex?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Gulf Intracoastal Waterway West Closure Complex.