Highway Hydraulics – Open Channel Flow

This advanced course provides civil and transportation engineers with a deep understanding of open-channel flow principles, specifically as they apply to highway drainage and infrastructure design. The material covers key hydraulic concepts such as steady and unsteady flow, flow regimes, resistance equations, and velocity profiles in natural and engineered channels. It includes in-depth discussions on the use of Manning’s equation, conveyance calculations, shear stress, and the Froude number, all within the context of practical applications such as riprap design, culvert transitions, and floodplain analysis.

Special attention is given to complex flow conditions including rapidly varied flow, hydraulic jumps, supercritical versus subcritical flow, and the behavior of alluvial channels under sediment transport. The course also includes worked example problems and graphical tools to aid in solving real-world hydraulic design challenges. This course is ideal for engineers involved in hydrologic modeling, stream restoration, bridge and culvert design, and stormwater infrastructure planning.

Learning Objectives

This course is intended to provide you with the following specific knowledge and skills:

• Apply Manning’s equation and conveyance methods to analyze open-channel flow in various channel geometries.
• Distinguish between flow regimes (subcritical, supercritical, and critical) using the Froude number and evaluate their design implications.
• Compute shear stress, velocity distributions, and specific energy to assess channel stability and erosion potential.
• Analyze transitions, hydraulic jumps, and critical flow conditions in culverts and natural channels.
• Utilize flow modeling techniques to evaluate nonuniform and unsteady flow conditions, including surges and flood wave propagation.

Download the Course to review and begin earning your PDH credits.

We provide technical courses for PDH credits that meet Board requirements for Professional Engineers, Geologists and Land Surveyors. This courses is guaranteed to be accepted in AK, AL, AR, AZ, DE, GA, FL, IA, IL, ID, IN, KS, KY, LA, MD, ME, MI, MN, MO, MS, MT, NC, ND, NE, NH, NJ, NM, NV, NY, OH, OK, OR, PA, SC, SD, TN, TX, UT, VA, VT, WI, WV, and WY. Before purchasing this course, please confirm that your state Board is listed above.