Do the Volume-of-Fluid and the Two-Phase Euler Compete for Modeling a Spillway Aerator?

Water

Javier L. Lara¹  Lourenço Sassetti Mendes¹  Maria Teresa Viseu² 

[1] IHCantabria—Instituto de Hidráulica Ambiental, Calle Isabel Torres 15, 39011 Santander, Spain;Laboratório Nacional de Engenharia Civil, Avenida do Brasil 101, 1700-066 Lisbon, Portugal;

关键词: spillway aerator;    aeration;    CFD;    two-phase Euler;    volume-of-fluid;    hydraulic structures;   

DOI  :  10.3390/w13213092

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

Spillway design is key to the effective and safe operation of dams. Typically, the flow is characterized by high velocity, high levels of turbulence, and aeration. In the last two decades, advances in computational fluid dynamics (CFD) made available several numerical tools to aid hydraulic structures engineers. The most frequent approach is to solve the Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes equations using an Euler type model combined with the volume-of-fluid (VoF) method. Regardless of a few applications, the complete two-phase Euler is still considered to demand exorbitant computational resources. An assessment is performed in a spillway offset aerator, comparing the two-phase volume-of-fluid (TPVoF) with the complete two-phase Euler (CTPE). Both models are included in the OpenFOAM^® toolbox. As expected, the TPVoF results depend highly on the mesh, not showing convergence in the maximum chute bottom pressure and the lower-nappe aeration, tending to null aeration as resolution increases. The CTPE combined with the k–$\omega$ SST Sato turbulence model exhibits the most accurate results and mesh convergence in the lower-nappe aeration. Surprisingly, intermediate mesh resolutions are sufficient to surpass the TPVoF performance with reasonable calculation efforts. Moreover, compressibility, flow bulking, and several entrained air effects in the flow are comprehended. Despite not reproducing all aspects of the flow with acceptable accuracy, the complete two-phase Euler demonstrated an efficient cost-benefit performance and high value in spillway aerated flows. Nonetheless, further developments are expected to enhance the efficiency and stability of this model.

【 授权许可】

Unknown