1997-98
NEW MEXICO
HIGH SCHOOL
SUPERCOMPUTING CHALLENGE

TEAM ABSTRACT

Team Number:

044

School Name:

Cuba High School

Area of Science:

Environmental

Project Title:

Erosion Breaking Pipes

The breaking of pipes is a problem of great magnitude in the town of Cuba, New Mexico. These pipes are breaking because of erosion of the soil. When the city's water system was laid, a rock bed was not placed under the pipes. As a result, rainfall and snow melt is washing the sand and clay out from under the pipes. The weight of the soil on top of the rusted iron pipes is causing them to break. This has been a major problem in the past. Last summer a pipe broke and the National Guard had to haul water into the town. Cuba received national media coverage due to this incident. This project is important because it will help the town by finding out how long it will be before another pipe will break. It is planned to take soil samples at various areas of the water system. The amount of moisture that a certain soil or mixture of soils will hold or be washed away by will be found and used as data for the program. A formula to calculate how long exaclty it will be before the pipes in various areas break will be developed. If this project is successful it will be written up and taken before the Cuba city council. It is proposed that the project will be created using either a Fortran or C++ computer language compiler. This project will help the town immensly and will help an incident similar to the one experienced last summer be avoided.

Team Members:

• Earl Camp
• Shawn Camp
• Elizabeth Hoodless
• Janine Morales
• Camille Velarde

Sponsoring Teacher(s):

• Denise Dryzmalski
• Lorenzo Gonzolas

Project Advisor(s):

• Cris Bandy
• Denise Dryzmalski