Junction and Drop-Shaft Boundary Conditions for Modeling Free-Surface, Pressurized, and Mixed Free-Surface Pressurized Transient Flows

Abstract

A junction and drop-shaft boundary conditions (BCs) for one-dimensional modeling of transient flows in single-phase conditions (pure liquid) are formulated, implemented and their accuracy are evaluated using two computational fluid dynamics (CFD) models. The BCs are formulated in the case when mixed flows are simulated using two sets of governing equations, the Saint-Venant equations for the free-surface regions and the compressible water hammer equations for the pressurized regions. The proposed BCs handle all possible flow regimes and their combinations. The flow in each pipe can range from free surface to pressurized flow and the water depth at the junction or drop shaft can take on all possible levels. The BCs are applied to the following three cases: (1) a three-way merging flow; (2) a three-way dividing flow; and (3) a drop shaft connected to a single-horizontal pipe subjected to a rapid variation of the water surface level in the drop shaft. The flow regime for the first two cases range from free surface to pressurized flows, while for the third case, the flow regime is pure pressurized flow. For the third case, laboratory results as well as CFD results were used for evaluating its accuracy. The results suggest that the junction and drop-shaft BCs can be used for modeling transient free-surface, pressurized, and mixed flow conditions with good accuracy.