Experimental study and modelling discharge coefficient of trapezoidal and rectangular piano key weirs

Abstract

Abstract Crest length is an important parameter in influencing the discharge handling capacity of a weir. Nonlinear weirs with longer crests are cost effective alternatives for those existing dam structures which are more susceptible to failure due to loss of storage capacity by reservoir silting problem, and insufficiency of the structure in evacuating the updated flow due to the limited space. Piano key weir is a type of nonlinear weir designed in the form of piano keys, over-hanged from both the upstream and the downstream with sloping floors founded on a base or footprint. These weirs can be easily placed over gravity dams due to smaller footprint than labyrinth weirs. The present study’s focus is on the comparative analysis of identical configurations of trapezoidal and rectangular piano key (PK) weirs. The importance of (crest length to width) L/W ratio and weir height (P) in affecting the discharge efficiency of both types of PK weirs is investigated in the experimental study. Furthermore, soft computing approaches are applied to the current data set obtained from both types of weirs by considering discharge coefficient ($$C_{\text{d}}$$ Cd ) as a function of dimensionless geometric variables of PK weirs. The modelling performance of random forest regression and M5 tree approach is tested in order to estimate the values of discharge coefficient. The results conclude higher predictive accuracy of random forest model over M5 tree model.

Keywords

• Trapezoidal piano key weir
• Rectangular piano key weir
• Discharge coefficient
• M5 model tree
• Random forest regression