KSLA News 12 Shreveport, Louisiana |Colo. school to simulate Katrina-style wave damage
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Associated Press - November 16, 2009 4:34 PM ET
FORT COLLINS, Colo. (AP) - A Colorado State University researcher will design and build a test facility to simulate wave damage on the scale of Hurricane Katrina.
CSU said Monday the Army Corps of Engineers awarded $1.7 million to Chris Thornton, director of the university's Engineering Research Center.
The project will build a wave-overtopping simulator at the university's campus in land-locked Fort Collins. The facility will be able to simulate levees made of soils in any region.
Thornton says his team will try to find away for levee designers to take into account the forces generated by waves that over-top a levee.
He says CSU was chosen because of its facilities and because its researchers have experience in studying dams, spillways, erosion and other topics.
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