Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamic Modelling of Hydraulic Jumps: Bulk Parameters and Free Surface Fluctuations

Abstract

A hydraulic jump is a rapid transition from supercritical flow to subcritical flow characterized by the development of large scale turbulence, surface waves, spray, energy dissipation and considerable air entrainment. Hydraulic jumps can be found in waterways such as spillways connected to hydropower plants and are an effective way to eliminate problems caused by high velocity flow, e.g. erosion. Due to the importance of the hydropower sector as a major contributor to the Swedish electricity production, the present study focuses on Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamic (SPH) modelling of 2D hydraulic jumps in horizontal open channels. Four cases with different spatial resolution of the SPH particles were investigated by comparing the conjugate depth in the subcritical section with theoretical results. These showed generally good agreement with theory. The coarsest case was run for a longer time and a quasi-stationary state was achieved, which facilitated an extended study of additional variables. The mean vertical velocity distribution in the horizontal direction compared favorably with experiments and the maximum velocity for the SPH-simulations indicated a too rapid decrease in the horizontal direction and poor agreement to experiments was obtained. Furthermore, the mean and the standard deviation of the free surface fluctuation showed generally good agreement with experimental results even though some discrepancies were found regarding the peak in the maximum standard deviation. The free surface fluctuation frequencies were over predicted and the model could not capture the decay of the fluctuations in the horizontal direction.