Practical Engineering

The things we build to protect ourselves from flooding.

Explaining the basics of coastal erosion with a homemade wave generator!

Why coastal floods have little to do with rain and everything to do with wind. Most of the world’s biggest cities and about half of the global population live within 100 kilometers (60 miles) from the ocean. That’s pretty important, especially given the huge amount of land that isn’t near a coastline. We’ve talked about riverine flooding caused by intense precipitation in a previous video. But, there’s another type of flooding that has almost nothing to do with rain and almost everything to do with air.

When disaster strikes, the flurry of political positioning and fingerpointing can make it difficult to understand what really happened. This video provides a summary of the facts of the 2021 Texas winter storm. This February of 2021, a major winter storm made its way through the U.S. central plains, setting all-time records for low temperatures across the country. One of the biggest impacts of the storm happened here in Texas where people across the state suffered extended outages of electricity and water. It was one of the worst winter weather events in history, creating loss-of-life and economic impacts that will take years to unfold. Many are still recovering from the storm and will be for years to come.

What factors affect how liquids flow through pipes? Engineers use equations to help us understand the pressure and flow rates in pipes. Pipe systems are important to us, so it’s critical that we can design them to carry the right amount of flow without too much drop in pressure from one end to the other.

Exploring the engineering principles behind the recent obstruction of the Suez Canal, which caused a weeklong disruption in global shipping traffic. I give a brief overview of the bank effect and dilatancy of coarse-grained soils. Hopefully, the video helps you understand a few of the engineering challenges associated with navigating massive ships through tiny canals and what can happen when they run aground! Errata: - I incorrectly described the landform as the "Suez Peninsula." It is the "Suez Isthmus."

Explaining how pumps produce both pressure and flow with some fun water demonstrations. There’s a popular and persistent saying that pumps only create flow in a fluid, and resistance to that flow is what creates the pressure in a pipe. This video goes into some details about how two kinds of pumps work: centrifugal pumps and positive displacement pumps.

February 2017 saw one of the most serious dam-related engineering incidents in history with the failure of the service spillway at Oroville Dam. Whether they realized it or not, the people living and working downstream of Oroville Dam put their trust in the engineers, operators, and regulators to keep them safe and sound against disaster. In this case, that trust was broken. This video provides a summary of the event, including an explanation of the engineering details behind the failure.

Three hydraulic effects that ruin a pump. We collectively move incredible volumes of fresh water, drainage, and wastewater into, out of, and around our cities every day. And, we mostly do it using pumps. I love pumps. But, even though they are critical for the safety, health, and well-being of huge populations of people, there are a lot of things that can go wrong if not properly designed and operated.

n May of 2021, inspectors on the I-40 Mississippi River Bridge near Memphis, Tennessee discovered a major crack in a structural member. They immediately contacted emergency managers to shut down this key crossing to vehicle traffic above and maritime traffic below. This video provides a summary of the event, including a discussion on arch bridges, fatigue in steel members, and national bridge inspection standards. Errata: (1) 8:38 "at minimum, an arm's length away" should be "at maximum, an arm's length away" (2) 1:14 New Madrid is usually pronounced MA-drid, not ma-DRID. (3) 4:55 ”It’s hard to understate the severity” should be “overstate”

Humans are kind of gross. We collectively create a constant stream of waste that threatens city-dwellers with plague and pestilence unless it is safely carried away. Sewers convert that figurative stream into a literal one that flows below ground away from public view (and hopefully public smell). Your friendly neighborhood sewage collection system is not a magical place where gross stuff goes to disappear. It is a carefully planned, thoroughly tested system designed to keep the stuff we don’t want to see - unseen.

“Rigging” is the term used to describe all the steps we go through to attach a load to a crane so it can be suspended and moved. And, like all human endeavors, rigging is prone to error. Some of the most serious crane failures in history had nothing to do with the crane itself but were actually a result of poor rigging. There’s a lot that can go wrong below the hook, so in this video, we’re going to take a look at a few of the fundamentals in attaching and securing a load and some of the hidden hazards that can pop up if not done properly and carefully.

Cranes are the backbone of construction projects. So why do so many of them fall down? Because they are so pervasive and they do such a dangerous job of lifting massive objects high into the air, occasionally cranes fail. In this video, I want to walk through some of the reasons these failures occur, using historical events as case studies.

On June 24, 2021, a portion of Champlain Towers South, a 12-story condominium in Surfside, Florida, near Miami Beach, collapsed around 1:30 am. It was one of the most deadly structural collapses in U.S. history. This video summarizes the events of this unthinkable tragedy, a few of the structural engineering issues that may have played a part, and finally the process of forensic structural investigations.

Things can and still go wrong with heavy lifts even when the crane is perfectly safe and sound. “Rigging” is the term used to describe all the steps we go through to attach a load to a crane so it can be suspended and moved. And, like all human endeavors, rigging is prone to error. Some of the most serious crane failures in history had nothing to do with the crane itself but were actually a result of poor rigging. There’s a lot that can go wrong below the hook, so in this video, we’re going to take a look at a few of the fundamentals in attaching and securing a load and some of the hidden hazards that can pop up if not done properly and carefully.

In May 2020, heavy flooding resulted in the catastrophic failure of the Edenville Dam embankment, sending a wall of water downstream in the Tittabawassee River and completely draining Wixom Lake. The breach wave quickly overwhelmed the downstream Sanford Dam, overtopping and failing the structure. Over 10,000 residents in Sanford, Midland, and Saginaw were evacuated. The independent forensic team charged with investigating the event released an interim report in September 2021. The conclusions of the report include a discussion of a relatively rare phenomenon in earthen dams. Let’s walk through the investigation to try and understand what happened.

Why do structures big and small sink into the ground, and what can we do to stop it? ☕ Sign up to Morning Brew for free today: https://bit.ly/mbpracticalengineering Before the so-called Starbase supported crazy test launches of the Starship spaceflight program, it was just a pile of dirt. After nearly two years, they hauled most of that soil back off the site for disposal. It might seem like a curious way to start a construction project, but foundations are critically important. Building that giant dirt pile was a clever way to prevent these facilities from sinking into the ground over time. Errata: 1. The SpaceX South Texas Launch Site is located at Boca Chica near South Padre Island (not near Boca Chica on South Padre as stated in the intro).

The Millennium Tower at 301 Mission Street in San Francisco is famously tilting and sinking into the ground. How does geology affect the design of skyscraper foundations, and what is being done to fix this structure?