A Hydraulic Investigation of Flow through a Two-Layered Rockfill Dam Using an Experimental Model

In this paper, a mathematical model was used to describe the flow through a two layered rockfill dam. The coefficients of equations used were determined by an experimental model and a nonlinear optimization method. The model verification was carried out with the same model. The hydraulic flow in the porous media was not well recognized, because the flow was turbulent in these media. Thus, Darcy law was not valid in them. In this study, three power relationships between Darcy- Weisbach friction factor and Reynolds number were suggested for the three types of single layered porous media (fine, coarse and a mixture of them). By combining these relationships and continuity equation, rating equations were developed both for horizontal and vertical two layered rockfill dams, which had been made from the fine and coarse layers. These equations can be used in reservoir flood routing as rating equations. So, by introducing a hypothesis inflow hydrograph to the reservoir flood routing model, the output hydrograph can be determined, both for two types of two layered and three types of single-layered rockfill dams.