Experimental investigation of the effect of number and angle of anti-vortex piers in morning glory spillway with square inlet

Morning glory spillway is one of the spillways and used when it is not possible to use any other spillways. With the onset of submergence and flow loss, and intensification of circulation and vortexes, spillway performance decreases severely. With decreasing discharge coefficient, the height of water in the reservoir increases and the risk of dam damage, caused by the lack of spillway ability of great flow discharge, increases. Anti-vortex piers are used to solve this problem. The increase of the submergence threshold can provide ability of greater flow discharging, without spillway submergence and its negative consequences. Anti-vortex piers, in addition to correcting circulation and vortexes, may also be effective in increasing the submergence threshold. To investigate this possibility, 110 experiments were performed with the physical model on spillways with square and circular inlet section in different modes and number of anti-vortex piers. Results show that increasing number of Anti-vortex piers increases the submergence threshold and spillway can discharge greater inflow and height of water without being submerged. The effect of the overflow of the circle shape, because currents and vortexes spinning in a circle overflow is higher than square spillway. Also the maximum discharge coefficient was observed when 4 vortex breakers were installed at the angle of 90 degrees.