Analysis of the flow characteristics of energy dissipating structures in dam spillways by CFD method

During flow of water from upstream to downstream in a controlled manner, the flow of water at high velocity and pressure, which occurs as a result of hydraulic jump is broken by energy dissipation structures in relief or accumulation structures. Otherwise, the flow of water with high velocity and pressure in the downstream section, where the stream passes from a flood regime to a river regime, will damage its own structure and surrounding environment. For this reason, it is necessary to design energy-dissipating structures at appropriate locations with appropriate sections so that large pressure and friction forces do not cause abrasion and erosion in flow chamber. In this study, flow characteristics such as pressure distribution, outlet flow, velocity distribution etc. of the water flowing from a dam infill located in Adrasan town of Antalya province was determined. Then, dam spillway was modelled in the computer environment with the actual measurements and analyzed according to Computational Fluid Dynamics method (CFD) using ANSYS-Fluent software. Finally, the actual measurements were compared with the simulation results. Additionally, measured data were compared with the downstream flow characteristic by defining to dam and spillway projecting software of General Directorate of State Hydraulic Works (pro-SHW). As a result, the current dam spillway values are similar to the simulation values. It is clear that the CFD method provides the convenience of users and institutions in sizing and calculating the flow characteristic before projecting large fixed constructions which has high cost.