No abstract

In this study, a perforated baffle design is proposed to improve mixing in contact tanks. Turbulent flow through the perforated baffle is studied at the perforation hole scale. The contribution of jets emerging from the perforations to the mixing process is evaluated in terms of standard mixing indexes for various perforation parameters, such as the solidity ratio and hole diameter. Based on numerical simulation results, the two sets of perforated baffles that yielded the highest performance were manufactured from polycarbonate and tracer studies were conducted on a laboratory model. Comparison of numerical and experimental results demonstrates that the numerical model developed is reliable in simulating the flow through the perforated baffles and the associated mixing level in the contact tank. Numerical simulations indicate that the jet flow structure through the perforated baffle penetrates to the recirculation zones in the neighboring chambers and turns the dead zones into active mixing zones. Furthermore, large scale turbulent eddies shed by the perforations contribute to the mixing process in the chambers of the tank. With the use of the perforated baffle design, it is shown that the hydraulic efficiency of the tank can be improved from average to superior according to the baffling factor, and the associated mixing in the proposed design can be improved by 31% according to the Morrill index.

Vortical flow formed by a submerged hydraulic jump may produce significant hydrodynamic lift and drag pressures on a gate beneath the hydraulic jump. In this study, an experimental setup equipped with multi-pressure sensors was used to measure fluctuating impact pressures on the submerged gate for different flow conditions characterized by the inlet Froude number and submergence factor (S). Time-averaged and instantaneous pressure coefficients are evaluated based on simultaneous measurements of wall pressures at multiple locations, including those at the lip and downstream face of the gate. In particular, instantaneous lift pressure coefficients are observed to be independent of the submergence ratio for S > 0.6. It is found that low Froude number flows produce high surface pressure fluctuations and the dominant frequency of pressure fluctuations shifts to higher frequency as the Froude number increases. Pressure measurements for the free hydraulic jump suggest that the power spectra of lift pressure fluctuations are devoid of any significant energy level, whereas the resulting power spectra of the submerged flow exhibits significant energy level in the frequency range of 14-19 Hz. The proposed measurement system can be used for the in situ identification of hydrodynamic pressures acting on the gates in irrigation canals.