Determination of capacity of labyrinth side weir by CFD

Side weirs are widely used in irrigation, land drainage, urban sewage systems, flood protection, and forebay pool of hydropower systems by flow diversion or intake devices. The hydraulic behavior of side weirs received considerable interest by many researchers. A large number of these studies are physical model tests of rectangular side weirs. However, in the study, Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) models together with laboratory models of labyrinth side weirs were used for determining the discharge capacity of the labyrinth side weir located on the straight channel. The discharges performances obtained from CFD analyses were compared with the observed results for various Froude number, dimensionless nappe height, dimensionless weir width, and weir included angle. The results obtained from both methods are in a good agreement.

► We used the CFD and physical model to determine discharges capacity of the triangular labyrinth side.
► The discretization errors of the numerical model were estimated by a valid method.
► The CFD and the experimental results were compared for various parameters of the side weir.
► A good agreement was observed between both methods.