User:Dreamword/U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Bay Model

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Bay Model is a working hydraulic scale model of the San Francisco Bay and Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta System. While the Bay Model is still operational, it is no longer used for scientific research, and is instead open to the public alongside educational exhibits about Bay hydrology.

History
The Bay Model was constructed in 1956-57 as part of the comprehensive survey of the bay as authorized by Section 110 of the Rivers and Harbors Act of 1950. The Delta portion was added to the Model in 1966-69 to provide information for studies concerning impacts of the deepening of navigation channels, realignment of Delta channels and various flow arrangements on water quality.

Size and Scope
The model is approximately 320 feet long in the north-south direction and about 400 feet long in the east-west direction. It is constructed out of 286 five-ton concrete slabs joined together like a jigsaw puzzle. Features that affect the water flow of the San Francisco Bay and Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta are reproduced, including ship channels, rivers, creeks, sloughs, the canals in the Delta, fills, major wharfs, piers, slips, dikes, bridges, and breakwaters.

The limits of the model encompass the Pacific Ocean extending 17 miles beyond the Golden Gate, San Francisco Bay, San Pablo Bay, Suisun Bay and all of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to Verona, 17 miles north of Sacramento on the north, and to Vernalis, 32 miles south of Stockton on the San Joaquin River on the south.

Scale
The scale of the model is 1:1000 on the horizontal axes and 1:100 on the vertical axis. The model operates at a time scale of 1:100.

The Model is distorted by a factor of ten between the horizontal and vertical scales. The distortion is designed into the Model to insure a proper hydraulic flow over the tidal flats and shallows. The distortion does increase the hydraulic efficiency of the flows. These increased efficiencies are corrected by the use of copper strips throughout the Model. The exact number of copper strips is adjusted during the calibration of the Model.