Essentials of Hydraulics for Civil and Environmental Professionals

Receive an overview of key hydraulic principles and properties and will proceed to specific applications and problems of interest to civil and environmental professionals. By participating in this course, you will improve their overall hydraulic knowledge and

• Develop a working knowledge of key hydraulic principles and properties 
• Understand how to solve practical problems in pipe flow, pumping systems,
• open channels, reservoirs, and groundwater 
• Apply this knowledge to specific facilities and systems such as water supply systems, sanitary sewers, stormwater systems, groundwater wells, rivers, dams, and other hydraulic systems 
• Specify and select pumping equipment, motors, valves, and piping systems 
• Work with hydrographs, rainfall intensities, runoff, and probability concepts 
• Understand the role of hydraulic computer models 
• Use appropriate assumptions and simplifications to solve hydraulic problems

• Civil and environmental engineers and technical professionals 
• Municipal and consulting engineers 
• State and federal agencies, military bases 
• Others responsible for water related systems and facilities

Hydraulic Concepts and Properties

• Unit weight, density, viscosity, bulk modulus
• Pressure and head
• Hydrostatics and buoyancy
• Laminar and turbulent flow
• Steady and unsteady flow

Pressurized Flow in Pipes

• Continuity
• Energy grade line and the Bernoulli principle
• Pressure head, velocity head, elevation head
• Friction losses, Darcy-Weisbach, and Hazen-Williams
• Minor losses in valves and fittings
• System head curves

Pumps and Pumping Systems

• Pump characteristics and performance curves
• Impeller types, specific speeds, cavitation, net positive suction head
• Efficiency, power, and energy use
• Affinity laws: speed, flow, and head
• Parallel and series pumping
• Electric motors, variable speed pumping, VFDs

Flow in Open Channels

• Using the Manning equation
• Channel roughness, slope, and geometry
• Uniform and gradually varied flow profiles
• Rapidly varied flow, weirs, and spillways

Groundwater and Well Hydraulics

• Aquifer and porous media characteristics
• Drawdown, hydraulic conductivity
• Well siting, test wells, quality vs. quantity
• Typical well designs and cross-sections

Municipal Drinking Water System Hydraulics

• Distribution systems, levels of service, fire flow criteria
• Treatment plant hydraulics
• Water pumps, reservoirs, pipelines, and pipe maintenance
• System computer modeling
• Design pitfalls and challenges

Stormwater Hydrology and Hydraulics

• Rainfall and runoff principles
• Probability, flow, and precipitation frequency
• Rational method, SCS curve numbers, unit hydrographs
• River and stream hydraulics
• Introduction to TR55, HEC-RAS
• Stormwater Management Applications
• Storm sewer design examples
• Detention basin design examples
• Best management practices
• Low impact development

Wastewater System Hydraulics

• Hydraulic characteristics of sanitary sewer systems
• Diurnal flow variations
• Inflow, infiltration, peaking factors
• Handling solids-bearing liquids and sludges
• Lift station and treatment plant hydraulics

Problem-Solving Workshops and Exercises

• Throughout the course, attendees will participate in short problem-solving exercises that will help them to understand the key hydraulic issues, perform calculations, develop solutions, and discuss alternative scenarios.

"Excellent teaching skills and handouts. Included specific tools I can use at work. I really learned a lot from Ned Paschke."

"Excellent presentation and materials. I've been struggling with hydraulics since starting work, and this course helped me to feel much more confident to take on those hydraulics problems."

"By far the best continuing education class that I have attended."

Alan Larson

Al Larson, the former Chief Engineer and Assistant General Manager of the Madison Water Utility (MWU), retired from the utility after 20 years of service in early 2021. The position of Chief Engineer at MWU capped a 43 year career as a public servant and an engineering consultant. Educated at South Dakota State University, Al earned a BS in Civil Engineering and a MS in Environmental Engineering. His 43 year career included wastewater treatment and disposal, EPA Step 1 Facility Plans, large diameter sewer design and construction, tunnel design, water system modeling and planning, water system master planning, emergency response planning and response, groundwater and surface water treatment design and construction, water system optimization, and utility operation and maintenance. While at MWU, Al mentored 100’s of Civil Engineering students and guided 11 sponsored graduate students through Master’s thesis development to improve Utility Operations and Water Quality. Al has been assisting with the UW Interdisciplinary Professional Programs since 2006. 

Adib Amini

Adib Amini, Ph.D., PE, ENV SP, BCEE serves as Program Director in the College of Engineering’s Office of Interdisciplinary Professional Programs, with a focus on Water, Wastewater, Stormwater, and Sustainability. Dr. Amini also works with cities and industries as an engineering consultant, with experience in both drinking water and wastewater treatment. Dr. Amini has expertise in sustainability, engineering design, technology innovation, and renewable energy. Dr. Amini’s work has included the design of novel technologies, including on-site energy systems at facilities. He spearheaded the designs for the first wastewater treatment facilities in Iowa that are 100% powered by on-site renewable energy systems. Dr. Amini invented a novel system for ventilation of rated spaces, such as wastewater headworks buildings, for which he holds a provisional patent. Dr. Amini also has performed award-winning research in technology innovation and sustainability. Dr. Amini has spoken widely at conferences on topics related to water/wastewater treatment, sustainability, PFAS, on-site energy systems, and resilient infrastructure.

David Perry

David works on wet weather problems in wastewater collection system.  The hydrologic response of tributary areas caused by infiltration and inflow into the sewer pipes has been the consistent focus of his work for the last 20 years with Brown and Caldwell in Milwaukee.  This work involves     extensive rainfall and flow monitoring and a variety of software programs to support long range planning for sewer system improvement for decades to come.  Prior to this, David taught Civil Engineering at Santa Clara University.  He also has experience in large river modeling for dam safety studies and finite element analysis of underwater ocean cable hydrodynamics.

David has B.S. and M.S. degrees in Naval Architecture and Offshore Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley and a Ph.D. in Civil Engineering (Hydrology) from the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Yiying Xiong

Yiying Xiong, MBA, P.E., PMP, Fellow ASCE, is Associate Director at Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center at University of Wisconsin-Madison. With more than 22 years of experience in renewable energy and water resources sectors, she has led over 100 projects in 20 countries on 6 continents covering areas of dam safety, hydropower, pumped storage, fish passage, climate change, river forecasting, watershed management, food-energy-water nexus, bridge hydraulics, stormwater management, and bioenergy. Yiying holds a Master of Science in civil and environmental engineering from Marquette University and a Bachelor of Engineering in hydraulic and hydropower engineering from Tsinghua University (China). She is also an M.B.A. candidate at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.