Numerical Study to Evaluate the Performance of Nonuniform Stepped Spillway Using ANSYS-CFX

Abstract

The main features that attract hydraulic engineers for designing stepped spillways are their ability to lose a large portion of the flow energy and add or increase aeration to the flow naturally. Hence, smaller size stilling basin and no aeration device may require. This study aims to find the amount of energy dissipation rate and the location of inception point over non-uniform stepped spillway. The numerical 2D ANSYS-CFX code is applied to generate and run thirty-two models of different configurations using two different moderate slopes (1 V:2 H and 1 V:2.5 H) as most of the downstream slopes designed for moderate slope, and two different step heights (hs= 0.08 m and hs= 0.016 m) under skimming flow discharge for different (dc/hs) ranging from dc/hs= 1–2.2, in which dc is the critical flow deptho n the crest. The volume of fluid is implemented and the renormalized group of k-ɛ turbulence model is activated. The computational results demonstrated that the amount of energy dissipation increases with decreasing the flow discharge, chute slope, and step height. In addition, it is observed that the length of the inception point is directly proportional to the discharge and inversely proportional to both the chute slopes and step height. Moreover, for the design point of view, the results revealed that configuration B can be considered as the optimal one amongst the others examined herein.