Assessing Spillway Modifications by Detached Eddy Simulation Turbulence Model

Abstract

Spillway associated with flip bucket structure is a famous way to evacuate the floods at dams and dissipate the flood destructive energy in order to protect the dam structure. Several spillways suffered from damages where most affected zones were located downstream the flip bucket along the flow path towards the plunge pool. Poor geometrical design is a very important main reason of the damages occurring at the downstream of the spillway. It mainly occurred when the water jet failed to achieve safe impingement location. This study proposes solutions to damages that occurred in an existing dam. These proposed solutions were tested through numerical investigations of the existing and modified spillway configuration. This investigation was originated with the aspiration of decreasing the damage of real Spillway. From the literature, previous experimental results of spillway modelling were extracted and analyzed. The results were replicated numerically by ANSYS FLUENT software. The experimental results were contrasted against the simulated results. The contrast reflected that DES results are reasonably applicable. Confident with its results, it was applied to real spillway (Base case) and results were obtained. Firstly, the existing conditions were simulated to ensure that the model mimic the existing conditions accurately. Secondly, several modifications to the existing conditions were introduced to the model and then simulated to define the most applicable solution. Detached eddy simulation is used for accurately simulation of the flow physical model. The criteria of the modification properties are developed in the way of avoiding the existing erosion problem.