Numerical investigation of flow characteristics over stepped spillways

Abstract

Spillways are constructed to evacuate flood discharge safely so that a flood wave does not overtop the dam body. There are different types of spillways, with the ogee type being the conventional one. A stepped spillway is an example of a nonconventional spillway. The turbulent flow over a stepped spillway was studied numerically by using the Flow-3D package. Different fluid flow characteristics such as longitudinal flow velocity, temperature distribution, density and chemical concentration can be well simulated by Flow-3D. In this study, the influence of slope changes on flow characteristics such as air entrainment, velocity distribution and dynamic pressures distribution over a stepped spillway was modelled by Flow-3D. The results from the numerical model were compared with an experimental study done by others in the literature. Two models of a stepped spillway with different discharge for each model were simulated. The turbulent flow in the experimental model was simulated by the Renormalized Group (RNG) turbulence scheme in the numerical model. A good agreement was achieved between the numerical results and the observed ones, which are exhibited in terms of graphics and statistical tables. HIGHLIGHTS A numerical model was developed for stepped spillways.; The turbulent flow was simulated by the Renormalized Group (RNG) model.; Both numerical and experimental results showed that flow characteristics are greatly affected by abrupt slope change on the steps.;

Keywords

• cfd
• numerical modelling
• slope change
• stepped spillway
• turbulent flow