Water surface profile along different side weirs in subcritical flow regime

Abstract EN

Side weir was hydraulic structure used to divert flow from the main channel into the side channel whenever the water surface rise above the side weir crest.

In the present study FLUENT code that interfaced on ANSYS (V.14.0) was used to examine the computational domain in subcritical flow condition.

five different types of side weirs installed inside the horizontal prismatic rectangular main channel.

models were normal rectangular with (θ = 90o), oblique rectangular in which its crest is inclined with the flow direction by (θ =75o, 60o and 45o), triangular labyrinth with apex angles (δ=90o and120o), semi-hexagonal labyrinth with wall angles (Z=30o and 64.7o) and semi-circular labyrinth side weirs.

the volume of fluid method (VOF) provided to truck the free surface profiles.

the computational code is validated against the experimental models.

three different k- ε turbulent models were tested namely re-normalized group (RNG k-ε), standard k-ε and realizable k-ε.

free surface flow profile for three dimensional (3D) subcritical flow condition at the centerline of the main channel and near side weir bank were measured and plotted for different side weir models, the longitudinal water surface profile in the main channel was found to be increased from upstream end towards the downstream end of the side weirs.

result for aforementioned turbulent models was compared with the experimental data and it was found that the RNG k-ε turbulent model provide more accurate results compared with other turbulent model examined in the present study.