Abstract
Spillways and channel chutes are widely used in hydraulic works. Two kinds of abutment—walls and steps—are usually constructed to dissipate energy; however, they may also cause cavitation at the abutment position. In this study, we used Flow 3D with the Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes (RANS) and large eddy simulation (LES) turbulent models which included air entrainment to simulate the free surface flow through the spillway, channel chute and stilling basin of the Ngan Truoi construction to optimize the configuration of walls and dams. We measured the water level, velocity and pressure to estimate the influence of grid size and the turbulent model type used. Our results highlight the need to include air entrainment in the model simulating rapid flow over a hydraulic construction. With adjustments for energy loss, this study shows that walls provide the best results and the optimal distance between two walls is 2.8 m.
Highlights
The safety of dams and other hydraulic works plays an important role in water resources management in many countries because its failure can cause disasters downstream
Several studies have used a coupling of turbulence and air entrainment modules within Flow 3D to verify the effectiveness and robustness of this model
Flow 3D is based on the volume of fluid (VOF) method to solve the system equation of mass and momentum conservation laws, while Navier–Stokes equations and the TurVOF method are used for interface tracking [17]
Summary
The safety of dams and other hydraulic works (e.g., spillways, sluice gates, stilling basins) plays an important role in water resources management in many countries because its failure can cause disasters downstream. The commercial Flow 3D model based on Navier–Stokes equations has been applied frequently to address many environmental issues. This software provides various modules, such as viscosity and turbulence, air entrainment, shallow water and granular flow, to solve complicated hydraulic problems including supercritical flow, shock wave due to dam break flow, hydraulic jump in stilling basin, etc. Several studies have used a coupling of turbulence and air entrainment modules within Flow 3D to verify the effectiveness and robustness of this model. Valero [10] calibrated an air entrainment module in CFD spillway applications
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