Study of Dynamic Pressure Distribution over the Bed of Compound Flip Buckets

Document Type : Research Article

Authors

Abstract

Flip buckets are usually placed at the end of chute spillways or outlet conduits of high dams. The
projected jets from these buckets jump into plunge pools to dissipate the destructive energy of
plunging jets. Compound flip bucket is a special bucket with a non-zero degree of cross sectional
slope, followed by a curvature in its longitudinal direction. These structures are very suitable for
restricted geometries and conditional topographies. Although, studies of flow over flip buckets started
many years ago and valuable information is available for similar buckets, still there are uncertainties
regarding the flow over compound flip buckets. Therefore, in this study the hydraulic parameters such
as pressure, velocity and depth of flow on these structures were evaluated. Two chute spillways with
their flip buckets were used to check the pressure distribution and its variation with different hydraulic
characteristic along the compound flip buckets. The scaled model of Gotvand dam (south of Iran) at
Water Research Institute of Iran was used for this study. The Froude number varies in the range of 3.5
to 7.5. The results are presented in the form of dimensionless equations, which are calibrated based on
the present results. The location of maximum dynamic pressure on the bed of the compound flip
bucket is also determined.