Labyrinth spillway CFD Simulation

Description

Labyrinth spillway CFD Simulation, ANSYS Fluent Tutorial

Description

The spillway is a structure used to control the height of stored water behind a dam or a levee downstream, mostly in a riverbed. It has different types that can be used considering the needs.

The incoming water increases the stored water level behind the spillway and goes beyond the dam capacity. As a result, the extra water is discharged from the spillway to the downstream river.

The 3D geometry was created in Design Modeler software. A labyrinth spillway is located in the middle of a channel to control the height of stored water behind it. In addition, an unstructured mesh grid was carried out using ANSYS Meshing software, and overall, 464,175 elements were generated. Still, After hiring ANSYS Fluent software’s “Make Polyhedral “capability, the number of elements has reached 99,248.

This CFD project is the 14th episode of the ANSYS Fluent General Training Course.

Methodology: Labyrinth spillway

The simulation is Transient(unsteady) in order to capture the behavior of fluid over time. The Pressure-based solver type is used due to the incompressibility of the working fluid. The gravitational acceleration effects are considered by defining 9.81 m/s^2 in the negative direction of Y. This project simulates different solution phases using the VOF Multiphase model.

Conclusion

The height of stored water behind the spillway is equal to the spillway’s height, while the incoming water goes extra to the dam capacity.

The extra water is discharged from the labyrinth spillway to the downstream river to control the dam level. As the animations and contours show, the incoming water cause turbulence and pushes the stored water downstream. After overflowing from the dam, the flow moves with a higher velocity to the outlet.