Hydraulic engineers specialize in the properties and movement of liquids, namely water. Their job entails making highly educated guesses on how water will interact with infrastructure like dams, bridges, and canals.
However, a young U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) hydraulic engineer’s approach focuses on another—and most important—element tied to their projects, the human element.
Taira Baldauf began her career and USACE’s Galveston District (SWG) about two years ago as an intern, through the Department of the Army’s Fellows Program. Since then, Baldauf has gone from being an intern, to traveling to Europe as part of a major international collaborative effort, to graduating from the University of Delaware, and becoming a full-time USACE employee.
As an intern at SWG, Baldauf was allowed to move around among the various sections and offices within the district, getting a feel for what each one does. The 25-year-old Maryland native spent time in SWG’s geotechnical, civil design, hurricane, and hydraulics and hydrology branches, narrowing down where she eventually wanted to land.
“I tried a lot of different sections and groups and decided to stay in the coastal engineering section,” Baldauf said. It was the section’s variety of work that caught her interest. “We do different things for each project. It’s not the same cut-and-dry work every day.”
As a hydraulic engineer, Baldauf does either engineering calculations or modeling, she said. This involves using three- or two-dimensional renderings of the water in a project area. By plugging in different project parameters—i.e., wave height and wind speed—to the programmed numerical model renderings, Baldauf and her colleagues hypothesize how water will interact with a particular structure, like a ship or a channel, she said.
“If it’s a good model, you’ll be able to visually see the different trends in the water characteristics, like waves or water velocity, going around the structure,” Baldauf said.
The work doesn’t just involve predicting how water is going to behave around a project site, but also what could possibly happen in the future, she added. “Our projects are long term, so we design—depending on the project—typically for 50 years.”
“What is the water going to do in 50 years?” asked Baldauf. “Is it going to be worse than now? Are our structures going to be able to withstand that 50-year water condition?”
However, Baldauf said there is some engineering judgement—i.e., human input—that goes into that as well. This concept also echoes into her experiences in another part of the world prone to flooding and renowned for its water infrastructure: the Netherlands.
As it turns out, conflicts in her supervisor’s schedule led to her participation in the International Network for Storm Surge Barriers, or I-STORM.
“They’re basically a knowledge sharing network of countries and entities that manage storm surge barriers,” Baldauf said.
Dr. Himangshu Das, SWG’s coastal section chief and Baldauf’s supervisor, leads I-STORM’s U.S. contingency. Das became involved with I-STORM through his work as the lead engineer on the feasibility study of SWG’s Coastal Texas Project. As Das became busier with other engagements, he passed the opportunity to take part in I-STORM meetings and activities to Baldauf.
“With her education and project experiences, I believe Taira was a good fit for I-STORM,” Das said, mentioning her degree in civil engineering, minor in geological sciences, and her stint as an undergraduate researcher on coastal resiliency and green infrastructure.
“Taira is an excellent engineer,” Das continued. “Apart from her strong work ethic and technical knowledge, she is also very active in outreach activities.”
The “outreach activities” include five weeks supporting the Army Fellows’ rotation program in Rotterdam, Netherlands this spring. Baldauf learned firsthand how the Dutch do storm surge barrier design, operation, maintenance, and management.
“Every day was different,” Baldauf recalled. “I just hopped from different storm surge barriers and different offices around the country each day and would experience what they were doing or what they’ve worked on previously.”
While she learned a lot about the Netherlands’ history with flooding and storm surge management, Baldauf had one big takeaway from her time there.
She noted a shift in the way the Dutch designed and constructed storm surge barriers within the last 20 years. “They tried to have them completely computer-based,” she explained. According to Baldauf, the Dutch barriers were made to be completely automated, to the point where a computer would operate storm surge barriers based on certain water conditions.
Basically, humans were completely removed from storm surge barrier operation. However, in time, Dutch engineers realized computer automation could never get the risk behind operating a storm surge barrier low enough without human intervention, Baldauf said.
“They built these operational rooms that were really just made for computers and then realized, ‘Oh, we need people to run them,’” Baldauf said. The storm surge barriers eventually had to be retrofitted for people to be able to work in the mechanical operating spaces of the structures, she added.
Dutch storm surge barrier managers realized humans are able to make more critical decisions than a machine, Baldauf said. “There are variables humans can take into account that a machine simply can’t because it’s not human.”
I-STORM’s spirit of collaboration and learning proved to be a good fit for Baldauf. So much so, she ended up joining Next Generation, an I-STORM working group aimed at attracting the newest generation of engineers for future civil works collaborations.
Baldauf and the other young engineers of Next Generation are looking forward to creating things that are sustainable, she said.
“It’s not just [building] a structure,” she said. “We want to look at it holistically. How is this going to improve our community? How is this going to impact the surrounding area? What are our projects doing for the community?”
In time, Baldauf remains hopeful that the philosophy behind engineering projects will never lose focus on that one critical factor.
“It’s not so much about the project, but the human impact … and what it can do for people,” Baldauf said.
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