A topology-alterative two-phase flow solver and its validation for a dynamic hydraulic discharge process

ABSTRACT

In this paper, a domain-topology-based, two-phase, incompressible flow model is proposed to simulate transient flow variations associated with the gate opening motions of water conservancy projects, such as hydropower stations with plain and radial gates. The research source code is written in the OpenFOAM platform and incorporates the interDyMFoam solver. Two benchmark experiments were performed in the laboratory to validate the numerical results. The water level, pressure, flow pattern and development of vortices were recorded for comparison with numerical solutions. The results show that the relative error associated with the weir flow time was less than 5.00%. Moreover, good agreement was obtained between the time history curves of the free surface elevation and pressure based on numerical and experiment results. The detailed flow pattern reflects the simulation capability of the model, which can be used to numerically investigate the generation mechanisms of vertical vortices around gate grooves. The proposed model can be applied to further investigate flow variations in real hydraulic engineering applications.

Keywords:

• Flow visualization and imaging
• gate motion
• hydraulic sluice gate
• open channel flow turbulence
• OpenFOAM
• rotating and swirling flows
• two-phase flow

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Silu Yu, Siqi Dou, Guoyang Liu, Linlin Wang and Penghui Zhao for their support in preparing and calibrating the experimental facilities.

ORCID

Yao Lu http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3383-0532

Additional information

Funding

This work was partly supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China [grant number 2016YFC0401600] and National Natural Science Foundation of China [grant number 51779035].