914

2016,28(5):914-917
DOI: 10.1016/S1001-6058(16)60692-3

A new design of ski-jump-step spillway*

Jian-hua WU (吴建华), Shang-tuo QIAN (钱尚拓), Fei MA (马飞)

College of Water Conservancy and Hydropower Engineering, Hohai University, Nanjing 210098, China,
E-mail: jhwu@hhu.edu.cn

(Received August 25, 2016, Revised September 13, 2016)

Abstract: A new kind of ski-jump-step spillway was reported. By means of the effects of the aeration basin, it supplies the sufficient
aeration flow from the first step for stepped chutes, especially for large unit discharge. The physical model experiments demonstrated
that, this spillway makes a far better hydraulic performance as regards energy dissipation and cavitation damage protection than the
current and conventional stepped spillways, and the unit discharge can be enlarged from about 50 m3/s-60 m3/s·m to 118 m3/s·m in
order to significantly reduce the width of the spillways.

Key words: cavitation, energy dissipation, pre-aeration, ski-jump-step spillway


Over the last 30 years, several dozens of hydro-
power projects, characterized by high water head, large
discharge and narrow valley, have been constructed
within China. Stepped spillways, thanks to their simple
structure and high energy dissipation, are widely used
in the designs of the release works for high dams.
However, there are the limits of unit discharge about
50 m3/s·m-60 m3/s·m for those stepped spillways. Both
low energy dissipation and cavitation damage risk, due
to insufficient air entrained into the flow in several
foregoing steps of the spillways, may be brought about
if the discharge exceeds the limit. So, many investiga-
tions on the enlargement of the unit discharge of the
stepped spillways have paid much attention to in order
to reduce the width of the spillways, especially in
arrangement of those release works in narrow valley.
Pfister et al.[1] and Wu et al.[2] proposed the
bottom aeration method using an aerator device at the
first step. But, non-aeration zones still appear in two
sidewalls. Furthermore, Pfister et al.[3] and Zamora et
al.[4] presented another aeration method through pla-
cing a deflector at the vertical wall of the first step.
* Project supported by the National Natural Science Foun-
dation of China (Grant No. 51479057), the PAPD (Grant No.
3014-SYS1401).
Biography: Jian-hua WU (1958-), Male, Ph. D., Professor
However, in common with the method of the bottom
aerator device, there are also non-aeration zones in
two sidewalls in the deflector method.
Here, we will report a kind of ski-jump-step spill-
way, developed in the present work (Fig.1), which can
produce a sufficient aeration flow from the first step
of the stepped chutes (i.e., no non-aeration zones) so
that it could achieve high energy dissipation and low
cavitation damage risk, especially under the operation
conditions of large unit discharge.
Figure 1 shows the definition sketch of ski-jump-
step spillway geometry, including five parts as an en-
trance section, a ski-jump, a pre-step section, an aera-
tion basin, and a stepped chute. When the discharge is
small, the flow passes through every part in turn, and
it is the nappe flow regime that appears in each step of
either the pre-step section or the stepped chute. In this
flow regime, the flow energy is mainly dissipated by
jet break in the air, jet impact and mixing on the step,
and formation of full or partial hydraulic jump. Mean-
while, cavitation and atomization phenomena are vir-
tually weak because of the low flow velocity.
With the continuously increasing discharge, the
ski-jump and the aeration basin begin to play the role
of pre-aeration. A large amount of air is entrained
through ski-jump jet splashing in the air, and flow
impact, diffusion and recirculation in the aeration basin.
The sufficient aeration flow is formed by means of the
pre-aeration effects of the aeration basin and is supp-
lied to the stepped chute.
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Fig.1 Definition sketch of ski-jump-step spillway geometry and flow regime at large discharge

Fig.2 Description and photos of skimming flow

In order to verify the advantages of the ski-jump-
step spillway presented in this work, the experiments
were conducted in the High-speed Flow Laboratory of
Hohai University in Nanjing, China. The physical
model was designed according to the gravity similari-
ty criterion at a scale of 1:40 in order to obtain the unit
discharge in prototype[5].
For the test physical model, the entrance section,
with the horizontal length and vertical height of
0.33 m and 0.21 m, consisted of three parts as WES,
tangent and drop. At the pre-step section and the step-
ped chute, each step was of the length a = 0.11 m
and of the height b = 0.09 m . The ski-jump was 0.33
m in length and connected to the aeration basin by the
pre-step section with 6 steps. The aeration basin was
0.88 m in length and 0.27 m in height, and the stepped
chute downstream contained 16 steps.
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The unit discharges varied between 0.01 m3/s·m
and 0.47 m3/s·m in model, and then between 2.52
m3/s·m and 118.00 m3/s·m in prototype on the basis of
the model scale of 1:40, resulting in the relative
critical depths hc / b between 0.24 and 3.12, here,
hc is the critical depth.
The energy dissipation is defined as  = 1  H res /
H max , with H max = h1 + H1 + v12 /(2 g ) to be the energy
head in Section 1 and H res = h2 + v2 2 /(2 g ) the one in
Section 2, respectively (see Fig.1).
Figure 2 presents the description and photos ex-
periment finished by the authors, of the skimming
flows over the conventional stepped spillway and
ski-jump-step spillway, respectively, which are of the
same step geometries. For the conventional stepped
spillway, there is clearly a non-aeration flow region
whatever the unit discharge is, which may be
characterized by the position L1 of the inception
point of air entrainment (see Figs.2(a) and 2(b)). It is
this L1 that is the material weakness due to the
existence of cavitation damage risk for the
conventional stepped spillway. However, no non-aera-
tion flow region appears in the ski-jump-step spillway
due to sufficient air entrained into the water in the
aeration basin (see Figs.2(c) and 2(d)). The present
ski-jump-step spillway geometry could effectively eli-
minate those non-aeration flow regions so that cavita-
tion damage risk could be avoided, and this may be
one of the best outstanding characteristics for the ski-
jump-step spillway. Besides, comparing with the con-
ventional stepped spillway, the flow through the
present geometry could decrease the range of the
varied flow region in order to rapidly develop a
uniform flow state.
Fig.3 Variations of  with hc / b
Figure 3 shows the variations of  with hc / b ,
and the data of conventional stepped spillways with
various slope θ are cited from Refs.[6-8]. For any
given hc / b , the ski-jump-step spillway has obviously
higher η, and the advantage of the energy dissipation
increases with the increasing hc / b , comparing with
the others. Especially when hc / b reached 3.12 (corre-
sponding to the unit discharge of 118.00 m3/s·m in the
prototype), still,  = 75.8% for the ski-jump-step
spillway. In contrast, the energy dissipations of the
conventional stepped spillways are obviously insuffi-
cient under this condition.
The pre-aeration effect of the ski-jump-step spill-
way can be illustrated by the air concentration C on
the first step of the present stepped chute. Figure 4
shows the variations of C with hc / b . The air concen-
tration was measured by CQ6-2005 aeration apparatus
at the edge of the first step with the center line of the
bottom and the side wall of 0.025 m from the bottom.
8
4
C
Bottom
Side wall
0
0 2 4
hc∙b-1
Fig.4 Variations of C with hc / b in first step of present
stepped chute
Generally, C is always larger than 2.2% within
the whole range of operation discharge. When hc / b =
0.24 - 2.05 , C increases with the increasing hc / b . At
hc / b = 3.12 (corresponding to 118.00 m3/s·m in
prototype), the air concentrations of the bottom and
side wall are still maintained at 4.2 % and 5.1%,
respectively. It means that the air concentrations are
sufficient to control the cavitation damage risk[9].
In summary, the ski-jump-step spillway, develo-
ped in this work, shows better hydraulic performance
with regard to energy dissipation and cavitation dama-
ge protection than the current and conventional step-
ped spillways, especially for large unit discharge. The
unit discharge can be enlarged from about 50 m3/s·m-
60 m3/s·m to 118 m3/s·m in order to drastically reduce
the width of the spillways.
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