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Title: Bonneville Project: CFD of the Spillway Tailrace

Abstract

US Army Corps of Engineers, Portland District (CENWP) operates the Bonneville Lock and Dam Project on the Columbia River. High spill flows that occurred during 2011 moved a large volume of rock from downstream of the spillway apron to the stilling basin and apron. Although 400 cubic yards of rocks were removed from the stilling basin, there are still large volumes of rock downstream of the apron that could, under certain flow conditions, move upstream into the stilling basin. CENWP is investigating operational changes that could be implemented to minimize future movement of rock into the stilling basin. A key analysis tool to develop these operational changes is a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model of the spillway. A free-surface CFD model of the Bonneville spillway tailrace was developed and applied for four flow scenarios. These scenarios looked at the impact of flow volume and flow distribution on tailrace hydraulics. The simulation results showed that areas of upstream flow existed near the river bed downstream of the apron, on the apron, and within the stilling basin for all flows. For spill flows of 300 kcfs, the cross-stream and downstream extent of the recirculation zones along Cascade and Bradford Island was verymore » dependent on the spill pattern. The center-loaded pattern had much larger recirculation zones than the flat or bi-modal pattern. The lower flow (200 kcfs) with a flat pattern had a very large recirculation zone that extended half way across the channel near the river bed. A single flow scenario (300 kcfs of flow in a relatively flat spill pattern) was further interrogated using Lagrangian particle tracking. The tracked particles (with size and mass) showed the upstream movement of sediments onto the concrete apron and against the vertical wall between the apron and the stilling basin from seed locations downstream of the apron and on the apron.« less

Authors:
; ; ;
Publication Date:
Research Org.:
Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)
Sponsoring Org.:
USDOE
OSTI Identifier:
1057842
Report Number(s):
PNNL-21842
400403209
DOE Contract Number:  
AC05-76RL01830
Resource Type:
Technical Report
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Subject:
Bonneville; spillway; CFD

Citation Formats

Rakowski, Cynthia L, Serkowski, John A, Richmond, Marshall C, and Romero Gomez, Pedro DJ. Bonneville Project: CFD of the Spillway Tailrace. United States: N. p., 2012. Web. doi:10.2172/1057842.
Rakowski, Cynthia L, Serkowski, John A, Richmond, Marshall C, & Romero Gomez, Pedro DJ. Bonneville Project: CFD of the Spillway Tailrace. United States. https://doi.org/10.2172/1057842
Rakowski, Cynthia L, Serkowski, John A, Richmond, Marshall C, and Romero Gomez, Pedro DJ. 2012. "Bonneville Project: CFD of the Spillway Tailrace". United States. https://doi.org/10.2172/1057842. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1057842.
@article{osti_1057842,
title = {Bonneville Project: CFD of the Spillway Tailrace},
author = {Rakowski, Cynthia L and Serkowski, John A and Richmond, Marshall C and Romero Gomez, Pedro DJ},
abstractNote = {US Army Corps of Engineers, Portland District (CENWP) operates the Bonneville Lock and Dam Project on the Columbia River. High spill flows that occurred during 2011 moved a large volume of rock from downstream of the spillway apron to the stilling basin and apron. Although 400 cubic yards of rocks were removed from the stilling basin, there are still large volumes of rock downstream of the apron that could, under certain flow conditions, move upstream into the stilling basin. CENWP is investigating operational changes that could be implemented to minimize future movement of rock into the stilling basin. A key analysis tool to develop these operational changes is a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model of the spillway. A free-surface CFD model of the Bonneville spillway tailrace was developed and applied for four flow scenarios. These scenarios looked at the impact of flow volume and flow distribution on tailrace hydraulics. The simulation results showed that areas of upstream flow existed near the river bed downstream of the apron, on the apron, and within the stilling basin for all flows. For spill flows of 300 kcfs, the cross-stream and downstream extent of the recirculation zones along Cascade and Bradford Island was very dependent on the spill pattern. The center-loaded pattern had much larger recirculation zones than the flat or bi-modal pattern. The lower flow (200 kcfs) with a flat pattern had a very large recirculation zone that extended half way across the channel near the river bed. A single flow scenario (300 kcfs of flow in a relatively flat spill pattern) was further interrogated using Lagrangian particle tracking. The tracked particles (with size and mass) showed the upstream movement of sediments onto the concrete apron and against the vertical wall between the apron and the stilling basin from seed locations downstream of the apron and on the apron.},
doi = {10.2172/1057842},
url = {https://www.osti.gov/biblio/1057842}, journal = {},
number = ,
volume = ,
place = {United States},
year = {Mon Nov 19 00:00:00 EST 2012},
month = {Mon Nov 19 00:00:00 EST 2012}
}