Numerical Investigation of the Successive Sluice Gates Performance in Regulating Flow Rate through Channels Using Flow-3D Software

Successive sluice gates are utilized to deliver a relatively constant amount of flow rate for a range of water levels variations at the upstream of the water distribution channels. In this study, the flow through successive sluice gates in four different models with five input flow depths were simulated and investigated using FLOW-3D software. Comparison between the numerical and experimental results indicated that the differences of the output flow rates were less than 10%. Therefore, the accuracy of simulated models was desirable. After validation of models, the output flow rate was calculated for each model and compared with design flow rate. Comparing the output flow rates of models with the design flow rate indicated that in the all investigated cases, there was an approximate difference of 8 percent. Therefore, the successive sluice gates showed acceptable accuracy in delivery of constant flow rate during variation of water depth at upstream of the channel. Also, the evaluation of energy dissipation in the models showed that the energy dissipation was negligible when just the first gate was active. But by increasing the depth of input flow and utilization of the next gates, the rate of energy dissipation caused by the flow through successive sluice gates was increased to about 15-22 percent. Therefore, in addition to precise flow regulation, this structure was also effective in energy dissipation if input flow depths were high.