Numerical Investigation of Erosion Wear Characteristics of Hydraulic Spillway

There are many sand-laden waters in China, and the wear of hydraulic structures caused by sand-laden water diversion has been paid more and more attention. Taking the spillway of a reservoir as the research object, the numerical model of erosion wear caused by sediment-laden particle flows on the spillway was established by using the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) method, VOF (Volume of Fluid) multiphase flow model and DPM (Discrete Phase Model). Through the simulation analysis of the spillway's overall erosion, the distribution of the spillway erosion wear was obtained. Then, according to the main wear parts, the single variable, such as sediment diameter, sediment concentration, flow velocity and gate opening degree, was changed to study the erosion amount of the spillway and the distribution law of the spillway erosion parts. The results show that the main erosion sites of the spillway are at the bottom of the gate chamber and the middle section of the spillway. The maximum erosion increases linearly with the increase in sediment concentration. With the increase in sediment concentration, the sediment concentration changed from 1 kg/m(3) to 6 kg/m(3), and the maximum erosion of the spillway increased from 2.58 x 10(-7) kg/m(2) to 1.53 x 10(-6) kg/m(2). The erosion at the bottom of the spillway and gate leaf increases first and then decreases with the increase in sediment diameter and reaches the maximum value when the particle size is 0.002 mm. The erosion at the bottom of the spillway and the gate leaf increases with different growth trends as the flow velocity increases, when the flow velocity increases from 2 m/s to 9 m/s and the maximum erosion amount at the bottom of the spillway increases from 3.66 x 10(-7) kg/m(2) to 1.14 x 10(-6) kg/m(2), and the maximum erosion of the gate leaf increased from 1.66 x 10(-8) kg/m(2) to 8.98 x 10(-6) kg/m(2). The erosion amount at the bottom of the spillway increases with the increase in the gate opening between 0 and 3 m and tends to be stable when the gate opening is greater than 3 m. The maximum erosion position moves to the rear part of the spillway with the change in the gate opening. The change in the gate opening has no obvious effect on the erosion amount of the gate leaf but only changes the area of the gate erosion part. Thus, the erosion wear distribution of spillway under different work conditions is summarized, and the qualitative study between the erosion wear and the distribution of sediment diameter, sediment concentration, flow velocity and gate opening degree is made.

Automated summary

The study revealed that an increase in sediment concentration linearly leads to a rise in maximum erosion on the spillway, while an increase in sediment diameter initially increases erosion, then decreases. Flow velocity results in varying trends of erosion growth, and gate opening significantly affects erosion at the bottom.