Performance of the Allegheny River Ice Control Structure, 1983.

Oil City, Pennsylvania, is at the confluence of the Allegheny River and Oil Creek. The business district is located in the flood plain, and ice jam flooding has been a persistent problem. A floating ice control structure was installed on the Allegheny River prior to the 1983 ice season. The structur...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Deck,D, Gooch,G
Other Authors: COLD REGIONS RESEARCH AND ENGINEERING LAB HANOVER NH
Format: Text
Language:English
Published: 1984
Subjects:
ICE
Ice
Online Access:http://www.dtic.mil/docs/citations/ADA144094
http://oai.dtic.mil/oai/oai?&verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&identifier=ADA144094
Description
Summary:Oil City, Pennsylvania, is at the confluence of the Allegheny River and Oil Creek. The business district is located in the flood plain, and ice jam flooding has been a persistent problem. A floating ice control structure was installed on the Allegheny River prior to the 1983 ice season. The structure was a steel pontoon ice boom located upstream of Oil City and was used to encourage early formation of an ice cover at this location. This would suppress prolonged frazil ice generation, which in the past led to a massive freezeup jam downstream. This accumulation would prevent the discharge of ice from Oil Creek during breakup, when ice jam flooding would occur. The performance of the structure during its first year is documented here. Oil City escaped ice jam flooding during the winter of 1983.