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Website: www.ijetae.com (ISSN 2250-2459, ISO 9001:2008 Certified Journal, Volume 3, Issue 12, December 2013)
Research Officer, Assistant Research Officer, Central Water & Power Research Station, Pune (India)-411 024
The flushing discharge along with the settled sediment is
sucked into the flushing tunnels through these openings.
The size and spacing of these openings are so designed to
ensure that the velocity in the silt flushing tunnel is more
than 3.0 m/s throughout its length for efficient transport of
settled sediment.
Desilting
flushing
chamber, sediment
tunnel, suspended
transport
sediment
I. INTRODUCTION
The rivers in the Himalayan region possess very high
power potential and many cascade type run-of-river hydro
power plants have already been commissioned and many
more are coming up in the near future. When a hydro
power project is constructed on such a river, the suspended
part of the sediment load finds its way into the power
intake and causes a lot of damage to the turbine blades and
other costly under water equipments in the power house.
Desilting chambers form an integral part of water
conductor system of these projects to remove / minimize
the suspended sediment from water diverted for power
generation. In these desilting chambers, cross sectional area
of flow is increased to a designed length and settlement of
suspended sediment occurs in this length. The settled
sediment in the desilting chamber is flushed out through the
silt flushing tunnels (SFT) provided just below the
chamber. An excess flushing discharge of 15 to 20% of the
head race tunnel (HRT) discharge is taken through the
power intake for flushing of sediment. These flushing
tunnels carry the settled sediment laden water upto the
outfall in the river downstream of the dam. Silt flushing
tunnel connect with the desilting chamber through the
openings of designed size and spacing which are provided
at bottom of the chamber.
428
C. Slope
To economize the construction, instead of constructing
all the individual flushing tunnels up to the outfall, these
are joined together in a combined tunnel which carries the
sediment laden water up to its outfall. The slope of each of
the individual tunnel as well as the combined tunnel is kept
such that the required flushing velocity is maintained
throughout for sediment disposal and flow should be
supercritical.
Elongated nose
at junctions
429
Combined SFT
1
4
C. Velocity observations
The discharge equivalent to 25 m3/s equally distributed
in four tunnels was simulated and reservoir water level was
maintained above MDDL on the upstream. It was observed
on the model that 2.5 m depth of individual silt flushing
tunnel as proposed is not adequate to accommodate the
discharge of 6.25 m3/s. Also, to streamline the flow in line
with the flow in combined flushing tunnel, the proposed
layout of the flushing tunnels needs modifications.
Considering these aspects, the depth of individual SFT was
increased from 2.5 m to 3.0 m in the reach 40.0 m to 81.70
m downstream of control gate for SFT No 3 & 4. Similarly
for SFT No 1 & 2 the depth was increased from 2.5 m to
3.0 m in the reach 40.0 m to 69.25 m. Further downstream
of this reach the depth of flushing tunnel was maintained as
3.50 m.
431
Transition
432
% Finer
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TABLE I
ESTIMATION OF CONCENTRATION IN SFT
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
SFT d 50 = 0.3
0.01
0.1
10
33.67
168.35
SFT d 50 = 0.2 mm
qs = 0.05
0.01
0.1
1
Particle dia (mm)
5000
63.24
168.36 x 0.6324 =
106.46
6.25
17034 Say 17000
Inlet d 50 = 0.15
% Finer
10
V2
d 50
s
(
g
1
)d 50
3/ 2
Where;
V
g
433
V. DISCUSSIONS
The analytical results for the prototype and that for the
model are as follows:
TABLE II
ESTIMATION OF SEDIMENT TRANSPORT CAPACITY
Parameter
Prototype
Model
25.0
0.0287
3.0
0.2
1 in 267.88
1 in 267.88
Froude number
0.88
0.88
Mannings roughness
coefficient n
0.014
0.0089
Velocity (m/s)
3.987
1.030
3.2598
0.2173
0.2
0.3
VI. CONCLUSIONS
Based on the case study mentioned in this paper, it was
concluded that the hydraulic design was improved by
testing various alternatives and combinations such as
increase in depth of individual flushing tunnel, provision of
transition in combined SFT, modifications in junctions and
lowering of exit portal. The designed layout of the silt
flushing tunnels, if tested on a physical model helps in
evolving a better hydraulic design thus improving the
sediment carrying capacity. The deposition of sediment at
critical points is observed in the model and the layout, cross
section and the slope of the flushing tunnels can be
modified accordingly.
Acknowledgements
Sediment Transport
27587 Say
16250 Say
capacity (ppm)
27600
16250
(By Engelund and
Hansen
formula)
From
table
2, it would be seen that if the slope of the
combined silt flushing tunnel would have been 1 in 267.88
against the provided slope of 1 in 127.24, the flow in the
silt flushing tunnel would be sub-critical with Froude No.
0.88 and the velocity would be of the order of 3.987 m/s
where the flow attains the normal depth. With these
conditions, the sediment transport capacity of the combined
flushing tunnel works out to be of 27,600 ppm for
prototype parameters and 16250 ppm for model
parameters.
Whereas, the slope provided in combined silt flushing
tunnel is 1 in 127.24 and supercritical flow prevails in the
flushing tunnel.
[3]
[4]
434