Discharge Coefficients of Piano Key Weirs From Experimental and Numerical Models

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Mario Oertel

Thursday 2 july 2015

12:45 - 12:48h at Asia (level 0)

Themes: (T) Water engineering, (ST) River and coastal engineering, Poster pitches

Parallel session: Poster pitches: 11C. Engineering - Industrial

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Piano Key Weirs (PKW) are relative new hydraulic structures of the labyrinth weir family. Their aim is to increase discharge capacities and hence to reduce upstream water levels in reservoirs or general flow systems. PKWs are in the focus of research investigations for some ten years and especially experimental models are used to determine discharge coefficients. During the last years also numerical 3D simulations are compared with those results from physical model tests. The present paper investigates results from a scaled experimental model and analyzes discharge coefficients of various PKW structures. The research focuses on the comparison of discharge coefficients for PKWs without and with geometrical adaptions at the downstream end at the top of the structure. Therefore, an investigation program is carried out to analyze the upstream free surface profiles and their influence on resulting discharge coefficients. Additionally, discharge coefficients from experimental models and numerical 3D simulations are compared to test the applicability of a chosen numerical VOF code. Therefore, the numerical model is an upscaled copy of the experimental model.