Pressure Distribution on the Bed of the Compound Flip Buckets

Abstract

Flip buckets are usually placed at the end of chute spillways or outlet conduits of high dams. The projected jets from these buckets jump into plunge pools to dissipate the destructive energy of plunging jets. Compound flip bucket is a special bucket with a non-zero degree of cross sectional slope, followed by a curvature in its longitudinal direction. These structures are very suitable for restricted geometries and conditional topographies. Although, studies of flow over flip buckets turn back to many years and there are valuable information for simple buckets, but still there are uncertainties regarding the flow over compound flip buckets. Therefore, in this study the hydraulic parameters such as pressure, velocity and depth of flow on these structures are presented. Two chute spillways with their flip buckets were used to check the pressure distribution and its variation with different hydraulic characteristic along the compound flip buckets. The scaled model of Gotvand dam (south of Iran) at Water Research Institute of Iran was used for this study. The Froude number varies in the range of 3.5 to 7.5. The results are presented in the form of dimensionless equation, which was calibrated based on the present results. The location of maximum dynamic pressure and pattern of flow obstruction on the bed of the compound flip bucket is also presented.