Análisis numérico del vertedero de excesos para control de crecida en una captación convencional

Abstract

In hydraulic projects, the projection of structures such as spillways and gates is essential. These structures allow capturing and directing the flow, regulating flows and levels, as well as facilitating operation and maintenance. One of the most used structures, essential for flow control in flood scenarios, is the excess side weir, which, like other adjoining and control works, is normally designed by traditional methods that include important simplifications in relation to a bidirectional behaviour of the flow. In this context, in the present graduation project, the analysis and validation of the traditional design criteria and procedures for a structure used to discharge excess flows through a side weir is proposed for a case study with a flow considered representative for small and medium magnitude structures. The analysis was performed by contrasting the results obtained with OpenFoam a Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) software that solves numerically the fluid flow governing equations. The numerical model allowed to obtain a guided simulation of the behaviour of the flow in the vicinity of the excess side weir. As the main result of the present work, and after the comparative analysis between the conventional dimensioning and the numerical flow model results, it is concluded that the empirical-order simplifications used in the conventional design procedures that consider unidirectional flow don’t compromise the accuracy of the representation of the real flow profile. The flow patterns obtained with the numerical model correspond adequately with the flow profile estimated with the conventional procedure. Therefore, important modifications are not required since variations in water levels have values in the order of 1.74%.