ASCE has honored Panayiotis Diplas, Ph.D., P.E., F.EWRI, F.ASCE, with the 2021 Hunter Rouse Hydraulic Engineering Award for fundamental contributions to the role of turbulence in sediment transport, ecohydraulics, stream restoration, and scour.
The research contributions by Diplas are characterized by a solid foundation in fluid mechanics backed by state-of-the-art experiments and electronic instrumentation. In this respect, his work exemplifies the research approach that Hunter Rouse pioneered and for which he is venerated.
Diplas has studied in great detail the interaction of turbulence with movable sediment beds, and it is in this context that he is known for his contribution to the problem of initiation of sediment motion by applying the impulse momentum principle. He has also shown that a unified bedload transport relationship that is valid over a wide range of time scales can be formulated by considering the turbulence intermittency aspects of particle entrainment. In another major contribution, he has studied turbulent flow through vegetation and obtained good agreement between laboratory measurements and LES simulations. His investigations have produced useful hydraulic criteria for evaluating stream habitat and impact of hydropower releases on fish. Application of experimental and numerical tools by Diplas to turbulent processes initiated by in-stream structures such as bridge piers, bendway weirs, and stream restoration structures has had an enormous influence on a better physical understanding of these processes and their contributions to bed scour.
The breadth and depth of Diplas’s understanding of turbulent processes at fluid interfaces with the streambed and hydraulic structures in hydraulic engineering are truly unique.
The Hunter Rouse Hydraulic Engineering Award is presented, upon recommendation of the Executive Committee of the Environmental & Water Resources Institute Hydraulics and Waterways Council, to a distinguished person who will deliver the Hunter Rouse Hydraulic Engineering Lecture at an appropriate meeting of the Society.
