Effects of modern marguerite-shaped inlets on hydraulic characteristics of swirling flow in shaft spillways

Abstract

This study used model experiments to investigates hydraulic characteristics of flow at marguerite-shaped inlets with holes at the bottom of their lobes, known as modern marguerite-shaped inlets. This innovation reduces the swirling flow strength and improves the hydraulic performance of simple shaft spillways. Head–discharge relationships, flow circulation, threshold and critical submergence depths, and discharge coefficients are detailed for different flow regimes. The findings suggest that flow discharges through this type of inlet were approximately six, three, and two times greater than flow discharges through a simple shaft spillway, a circular piano key inlet, and a simple marguerite-shaped inlet, respectively. Increasing the outer length and height of inlets also uniformly distributed the flow around shaft spillways. The best hydraulic performance was observed in the inlets with an outer height of 1.25D and an outer length of 3.75D, where D is the diameter of the shaft spillway. Different equations, with high correlations and low errors, were derived to determine the threshold and critical submergence depths and the discharge coefficients for free and orifice flow regimes.