Experimental and numerical investigation for energy dissipation of supercritical flow in sudden contractions
Rasoul Daneshfaraz, Ehsan Aminvash, Esmaeli Reza, Sina Sadeghfam, John Abraham
Abstract
Dealing with kinetic energy is one of the most important problems in hydraulic structures, and this energy can damage downstream structures. This study aims to study energy dissipation of supercritical water flow passing through a sudden contraction. The experiments were conducted on a sudden contraction with 15 cm width. A 30 cm wide flume was installed. The relative contraction ranged from 8.9 to 9.7, where relative contraction refers to the ratio of contraction width to initial flow depth. The Froude value in the investigation varied from 2 to 7. The contraction width of numerical simulation was 5~15 cm, the relative contraction was 8.9~12.42, and the Froude value ranged from 8.9~12.42. In order to simulate turbulence, the k-e RNG model was harnessed. The experimental and numerical results demonstrate that the energy dissipation increases with the increase of Froude value. Also, with the sudden contraction, the rate of relative depreciation of energy is increased due to the increase in backwater profile and downstream flow depth. The experimentation verifies the numerical results with a correlation coefficient of 0.99 and the root mean square error is 0.02.