SBIR-STTR Award

The public is entitled to enjoy the sustainable use of natural resources held in trust by Federal and State governments and to be assured that travel on the nations highways will be safe. By providing better data on gravel-bed streams, beaches, and bridge foundation in gravel, the proposed technology will contribute to the protection of these natural resources and the environment, and the safety of the driving public. Development of innovative instrument packages for attended and autonomous measurements of the movement of well-sorted, coarse (10 - 128 mm) sediment as bedload based on acoustic techniques is proposed. The unique aspects the proposed techniques are: 1) the detection and measurement principle, 2) the analog and digital signal-processing techniques, 3) the packaging techniques for hostile environments, and 4) the auxiliary sensors for simultaneously monitor flow conditions and sensor orientation. A successful project will result in proof of the sensing concept in a movable-bed flume with realistic hydraulic and transport conditions as well as two prototype tranducers for Phase II field tests alongside well-accepted bedload traps and portable measurement devices.

Anticipated Results/Potential Commercial Applications of Research:
:The proposed research will create new tools to improve the quality of gravel transport data by increasing the accuracy and quantity of measurements obtained during floods and extreme condition. The proposed instruments will reduce labor and capital costs of instrumentation and allow unattended measurements with portable equipment that are currently impossible. Three USFS research organizations, the USGS, and USACOE have expressed interest in using the proposed technology. The private sector will benefit from more accurate, less expensive, and more rapid methods for producing environmental data for permit applications and regulatory compliance.

Gravel streambeds and beaches provide spawning habitat for salmon and form barriers to coastal erosion. Understanding how gravel is transported through measurements is essential for monitoring the ecological and physical processes of gravel-bed systems and for calibrating sediment transport models. We propose Phase II research to develop: 1) impact-recording sensors that can be deployed by wading operators or from bridges (designated Type 1 devices)and autonomous, internally recording systems that can be deployed in streams, on beaches, or on talus slopes for weeks to months to capture continuous records of bedload transport (designated Type 2 devices), 2) a method to estimate mass and volume transport rates in gravel bedload from the particle momentum data recorded by acoustic instruments and water depth logged by an auxiliary pressure sensor, and 3) an embedded controller to compute and record momentum, mass and volume-fluxes and pressure in real-time. Successful completion of the project will result in two new field-tested and flume-calibrated instruments that are safer to operate, more efficient in terms of data recovered per operator-hour and sampling intensity, and are functional over a wider range of transport and flow conditions than can be sampled with existing methods. ANTICIPATED RESULTS & POTENTIAL COMMERCIAL APPLICATIONS OF RESEARCH The proposed research will create a new gravel transport measurement tools for accurate measurements during extreme flow conditions. The systems will be competitively priced, easy to operate and maintain, and will reduce labor costs. Several federal agencies (the USFS, USGS, and USACOE) have expressed interest in the technology for research and monitoring. The private sector will ultimately benefit from more accurate, less expensive, and rapid methods for obtaining environmental data for permit applications and regulatory compliance. D & A Instrument Company intends to manufacture and sell the proposed systems. The market, price structure and demand constitute an economically viable enterprise.