Effects of surface roughness on spillway flow behaviors

Abstract: This thesis examines the impact of spillway surface roughness on discharge capacity determination in hydraulic models. The study combines physical hydraulic modeling in a laboratory with Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) modeling using Fluent. The aim is to evaluate the effect of material roughness on spillway discharge determination for prototype spillways and outlets. The project includes a literature review, data collection, 3D modeling, model setup, numerical modeling, result analysis, comparison with other reports, and report writing. The results concluded that varying roughness heights as well as changing turbulence model and mesh settings did not significantly impact the final discharge (kg/s) at steady state. P-values less than 1e-7 for the average discharge at flowtime of [150 − tfinal[s]] suggests strong confidence in the statistical insignificance of varying roughness height affecting the discharge.