Stepped spillways and energy dissipation: A non-uniform step length approach

Abstract

A stepped spillway, which is defined as a spillway with steps on the chute, can be used to improve the energy dissipation of descending water. Although uniform stepped spillways have been studied comprehensively, non-uniform stepped spillways need more attention. In the interest of maximum energy dissipation, in this study, non-uniform stepped spillways were investigated numerically. To this end, within the range of skimming flow, four different types of non-uniform step lengths, including convex, concave, random, and semi-uniform configurations, were tested in InterFOAM. To evaluate the influence of non-uniform step lengths on energy dissipation, the height and number of steps in all models were fixed and equal to a constant number. The results indicated that in semi-uniform stepped spillways, when the ratio between the lengths of the successive steps is 1:3, a vortex interference region occurs within the two adjacent cavities of the entire stepped chute, and as a result, the energy dissipation increases by up to 20%.