Numerical simulation of flow over ogee crested spillways under high hydraulic head ratio

Abstract

Ogee spillway is one of the most common types of the spillway. Researchers have attempted to investigate the hydraulics of ogee structure under hydraulic heads near the design head. Herein, an ogee-crested spillway is studied at heads significantly greater than the design head. The efforts are undertaken to study the hydrodynamic field under high head ratio conditions by conducting a numerical simulation using OpenFOAM with five turbulence closures including standard k–ε, realizable k–ε, RNG k–ε, k–ω SST and LRR. The comparisons of flow parameters under different head ratios with the experimental data demonstrated that the LRR model had the best performance, which shows its strength in cases dealing with flow separation or significant streamline curvature. It is found that with increasing hydraulic head, up to seven times that of the design head, the flow separation zone grows linearly. Discharge coefficients are studied for a wide range of head ratios. It is concluded that increasing head ratio up to five leads to an increase in the discharge coefficient due to decreasing pressure on the ogee crest. As head ratio increases to greater values, the discharge coefficient drops suddenly due to some changes in the pressure field.