In this post, I will be writing about my conversation with Associate Professor Jeremy Bricker from the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Michigan. I first came across Professor Bricker's work after researching projects undertaken by the UMich civil and environmental department and discovering his lab. I will write a bit more about his lab later on. Enjoy our conversation about the fundamentals of hydraulic engineering as well as his career.
What actually is hydraulic engineering?
Hydraulic engineering is one of the many subfields of civil engineering. Imagine dams, levees, etc. The actual definition of it reads: "a sub-discipline of civil engineering, concerned with the flow and conveyance of fluids, principally water, and sewage," Professor Bricker described his work as working with the forces generated by floods, how floods damage things, and how to use water as a resource(like dams).
To put it in more general terms, hydraulic engineering is all about water and how we interact with it. Imagine water flowing in a river or coming out of a faucet – hydraulic engineers study how to control and use that water. They figure out how to build things like dams to store water for electricity or irrigation, and they also work on ways to protect us from floods by designing strong structures that can withstand the force of rushing water. They're the ones who make sure water works for us, not against us.
A bit more about Professor Bricker
Similar to most other engineering professionals, Professor Bricker went into college not knowing exactly what he wanted to do but knew that he wanted to work in engineering. He obtained his bachelor's degree in mechanical and aerospace engineering at Rutgers University before pursuing his master's and doctorate in civil at Stanford. When I brought this up he stated that, like most engineers, he did not fully know what specific field in engineering he wanted to go into. Instead, you choose a major and take introductory courses introducing you to all the types of engineering. The reason that Professor Bricker decided to pursue his degree in civil engineering is because what enjoyed most from what he learned in undergraduate school was fluid mechanics and structural. Two of arguably the most important parts of hydraulic engineering. After obtaining his doctorate, he worked at a private firm for about 5 years before becoming an associate professor at Tohoku University of Sendai, Japan. After this, he taught at TU Delft in the Netherlands and he is currently working at the University of Michigan.
What impact can hydraulic engineering have on the world?
As stated in one of my recent posts, civil engineering is unique in that almost everything in the world leads back to it. This makes it obvious that civil engineering as a general subject has an enormous impact. But what can a hydraulic engineer contribute? Hydraulic engineering is the most rapidly growing subfield of civil engineering. This is largely due to recent climate concerns and more specifically, alternative ways of storing energy.
With the growing awareness of the imminent climate crisis, many are turning to find alternative ways to power things. That is where hydraulic engineers come in. Professor Bricker introduced me to the idea of hydropower. Hydropower is unique in the sense that it is arguably the most sustainable way to pull energy from the environment. The process goes: Fast-moving water is identified; water spins hydraulic turbines, leading to kinetic energy; The kinetic energy created by the turbines becomes electricity after going through a turbine generator. A turbine generator is a machine that uses the energy from flowing water to create electricity. As water rushes through the turbine, it makes the turbine spin, and this spinning motion generates electricity in a connected generator. Compared to fossil fuels and other power sources, the is easily the most renewable because it relies on the natural movement of water, which is an abundant and constantly replenished resource on Earth. As a hydraulic engineer, one might work to optimize this power source. For example, when capturing the energy from moving water, much of the energy is either not obtained or not stored. If one were to be a hydraulic engineer, one would work to improve the percentage of energy captured from the moving water.
Another subject that we spoke about was pumped hydro energy storage. It sounds complicated, but it is just a general term to describe the process of storing energy in water. Imagine a battery that lasts for 50-100 years and uses the concentration of water to store energy. It is similar to a battery in that it can be used as a way to hold power for extended periods. However, it differs in the way that pumped hydro is much less harmful to the environment and the energy stored will stay for much longer. That's amazing and all, that it is good for the environment and has room for innovation, but what is it? Pumped hydro has two physical sides. One side has a high reservoir of water and the other has a low reservoir. Dams are the most common form of this. The idea relies on two core principles. When there is excess energy, water is pumped from the low reservoir into the high reservoir to store energy, and when you need energy, you "open the gates" of the higher reservoir to let water rapidly flow into the lower. This goes back to hydropower where Professor Bricker explained how energy can be captured from moving water.
To expand a bit on why this could be the future of energy storage, Professor Bricker stated, "It overall has lower environmental effects than batteries because it lasts for centuries rather than for just 10 years. It doesn't use the same rare metals as batteries need," Despite these environmental benefits, he also stated some limitations of current-day pumped hydro energy storage. He explained that "it is very big infrastructure, so it's expensive up front," This is true, but in my opinion, it gives the field room for growth and innovation and should not be seen as a limitation, but as a goal to work towards.
What else do hydraulic engineers do?
Hydraulic engineers also work with everything that has to do with floods. From building bridges to be protected from them, or investigating why a building collapsed from a flood. In Professor Bricker's University of Michigan biography, he wrote that he and his research team "quantify damage to infrastructure and structures from extreme events such as tsunami, storm surge, and floods," This piqued my interest because I did not know how this could be done or what unit of measurement they'd even use so I asked him about it. The way he explained it was very straightforward and proved useful. he explained that his team uses computer modeling to predict what damages might be caused to an area due to a flood(with existing geotechnical information). With this information, they translate the damage to how much it would cost in losses. This led to my next question about the computer models that he had spoken about. I was also curious about these because I had read earlier of his laboratory at Michigan, where they could physically assess the damage that a small-scale tsunami could do on a single building. Now obviously, the limitation to this is that if you want to measure the damage to a city, one could not recreate that physically. Regardless, that is still very interesting and innovative. Anyways, this is where computer modeling comes in. There is software that the team can use, in coalition with the geotechnical data provided, to fabricate a virtual flood and city and observe the potential damages and losses.
Sociology in Hydraulic Engineering
Hydraulic engineering is closely tied to sociology for many reasons. On paper, sociology is the study of human behavior and social life. However, it comes into play for hydraulic engineering when engineers need to consider the culture of flood-prone areas and identify how the people will react and if and how it can impede on the local culture.
The problem is that these engineers usually come in contact with a phenomenon called the Levee Effect. It explains this chain effect that ultimately leads to a larger problem. It starts with infrastructure such as levies being built to protect areas at risk of floods. This infrastructure gives the people of this area a false sense of security because they could fail at any time and the damage could be catastrophic. In other words, since many of the people living in this area are not aware of the danger they and their property are in, the damages would be amplified.
Professor Bricker provided the example of Sacramento, with some of the city being more than 20 feet below sea level. He stated that although the people of Sacramento lived under the sea level, many did not understand the risks of such a scenario. Furthermore, the levees and other flood mitigation methods put in place here are anything but permanent and subject to failure if a large flood were to hit. Professor Bricker summed it up very well when he explained that “If a disaster doesn’t happen any generation or so, people will forget that they are vulnerable,” Now, of course, nobody wants a city to be flooded as it would lead to millions lost as well as lives, but if there is no large disaster or wake up call, many will go on living their lives without a care for the potential danger that they are in. Connecting back to an earlier point, when a disaster eventually does happen, the loss would be much higher than if the people were aware of the risk.
What does Professor Bricker like most about Hydraulic engineering and his profession?
Professor Bricker has been in the field for many years and he has worked all around the globe. This, in part, is due to the nationwide need for hydraulic engineers at all times. The project that he enjoys the most if the forensic analysis of why structures may fail during tsunamis or floods. He is trying to find out why a structure collapsed after the fact. A template for one's answer to such a question might go: This____ fell because ___, ___, and ____ happened... What can be done so this does not happen again? In 2011, Professor Bricker had a project in Japan after the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami where he investigated why a bridge collapsed. During his time there, he discovered that it was due to many reasons such as upward pushing wind, broken levees, and other reasons. From an engineering perspective, this seemed very interesting and cool to me because I enjoyed how they learned from their mistakes and created guidelines for generations to come.
Closing Note
While talking about how sociology [plays into the field, Professor Bricker stated that “the new generation of civil engineers are being taught that collaboration with social sciences is inevitable and necessary,” This quote spoke to me because it gave a path for the future of the field and how it is constantly evolving. From our conversation, I learned very much about hydraulic engineering, thanks to Professor Bricker. I wanted to say thank you to him for taking time out of his day to talk to me and give all of us very valuable insight into the field and I hope you are inspired to learn more about hydraulic engineering due to the information that Professor Bricker provided. I know I am.
Thank you for reading and I hope you have an amazing day!
Comments