Study of Dynamic Pressure Distribution over the Bed of Compound Flip Buckets

Flip buckets are usually placed at the end of chute spillways or outlet conduits of high dams. Theprojected jets from these buckets jump into plunge pools to dissipate the destructive energy ofplunging jets. Compound flip bucket is a special bucket with a non-zero degree of cross sectionalslope, followed by a curvature in its longitudinal direction. These structures are very suitable forrestricted geometries and conditional topographies. Although, studies of flow over flip buckets startedmany years ago and valuable information is available for similar buckets, still there are uncertaintiesregarding the flow over compound flip buckets. Therefore, in this study the hydraulic parameters suchas pressure, velocity and depth of flow on these structures were evaluated. Two chute spillways withtheir flip buckets were used to check the pressure distribution and its variation with different hydrauliccharacteristic along the compound flip buckets. The scaled model of Gotvand dam (south of Iran) atWater Research Institute of Iran was used for this study. The Froude number varies in the range of 3.5to 7.5. The results are presented in the form of dimensionless equations, which are calibrated based onthe present results. The location of maximum dynamic pressure on the bed of the compound flipbucket is also determined.