On September 28-30, 2015, Michael Newman, P.E., CFM attended a two and one-half day course related to 2D HECRAS Computer modeling. The course was presented in Austin, Texas and attended by persons representing various governmental agencies and professional engineering consultants. HECRAS is a hydraulic model created by the United States Army Corps of Engineers Hydrologic Engineering Center (HEC) for River Analysis System (RAS). It is frequently used to study stream flows and develop flood plains. For many years HECRAS has been limited to studying water flows in a one dimension only, namely, static flow moving in one direction downstream and perpendicular to pre-defined cross sections. HECRAS 2D is the next generation of software provided by the USACOE that will model dynamic storm water flowing freely in two dimensions without predefined cross sections outside of channels. Two dimensional flow can occur in large areas where a well-defined channel may not completely confine flood waters. For more information, please visit http://www.hec/usace.army.mil/software/hec-ras/.
