BNL Stormwater Drainage Analysis
After a safety analysis of a 2012 storm event that flooded and caused extensive damage to BNL facilities, PWGC conducted hydraulic modeling and an associated evaluation of a portion of BNL’s existing stormwater drainage system.
Our scope of work included field inspections to acquire the physical information necessary to construct and run a hydraulic model of the storm water system, identifying deficiencies in the system under a variety of simulated storm conditions, and development of corrective actions to improve system performance based on construction costs, constructability, and potential impact from future development.
PWGC visually inspected 125 structures, including storm water manholes, catch basins, trench drains, and vaults. Each rim elevation and structure was located via global positioning system device. Hydraulic models were then created to simulate the effect of storm water flow on the existing storm water drainage system to evaluate the system’s effectiveness to capture, drain and convey excess storm water in the study area. Model simulations were performed for the 25-year, 50-year and 100-year storm events for 6, 12 and 24 hour durations.
Proposed improvements to the existing storm water drainage system included: increasing pipe sizes, adjusting pipe slopes, and the installation of new manholes and area drains or catch basins. Implementation of these proposed drainage system improvements involved excavation and site restoration activities.
PWGC recommendations for BNL included developing a maintenance schedule and a hydraulic analysis study to evaluate whether or not on-site water bodies and their flow paths are impacting on the upstream portions of the existing drainage network.
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