Application of Controlled Gates Boundary Condition in HEC-RAS in Water Conveyance and Distribution Systems

Water level control and regulators have a main role in water conveyance and distribution. Despite the simplicity of structure settings in a steady-state condition, applying an appropriate setting in unsteady flow is complicated. Hence, control logic is used to set these structures, usually developed in languages such as MATLAB, Python, and FORTRAN. To use these logics, they must be combined with hydraulic models. In HEC-RAS, there is an elevation controlled water level boundary condition that can be used to control structures. In this research, the evaluation of the performance of this boundary condition was considered to regulate the water level in the E1R1 canal of the Dez network. The results showed that the rate of opening and closing of the gate has a significant impact on the performance, and if they are chosen correctly, the depth changes will be small. The results showed that the IAE indicator is around 1 percent in all the examined options and except in a few cases where the maximum value of MAE exceeds 10 percent and reaches up to 15 percent, its value is also low. Therefore, it is suggested to use this boundary condition in the control of structures.