Stepped spillway design for energy dissipation

Abstract

Important water structures known as stepped spillways are used to dissipate energy, aerate rivers, and reduce the cost of the downstream pool. The aim of this study is to increase the energy dissipation rate by proposing an alternative design to the flat stepped spillways, which are frequently used in practice. For that reason, the Circular Stepped Spillway (CSS) has been constructed and numerically investigated in this paper. The energy dissipation rate of the CSS and the flat stepped spillway has been compared using three different models and discharges. According to the simulation findings, the CSS performs better as the step radius gets smaller. The CSS models with step depths of 0.50, 1.50, and 2.50 cm have dissipated up to 21.4, 38, and 50.7% more energy than the flat stepped spillway, respectively. HIGHLIGHTS Circular stepped spillway (CSS) is more efficient than the flat stepped spillway for energy dissipation.; As the radius of the step on the CSS decreases, the energy dissipation rate increases.; As the step depth of the CSS increases, the energy dissipation rate increases.; The flow depth of the CSS is higher than the flat stepped spillway due to the amount of air entering the flow.;

Keywords

• circular stepped spillway
• computational fluid dynamics (cfd)
• energy dissipation
• flow3d®