The spillway design for the dam’s height over 300 meters

¹ Key Laboratory of Environmental Remediation, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, China Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100101, China
² Key Laboratory of Carrying Capacity Assessment for Resource and Environment, Ministry of Land and Resources
³ College of Water Resources and Architectural Engineering, Northwest A&F University, Yangling, Shaanxi 712100, P.R. China
⁴ Powerchina Guiyang Engineering Corporation Limited, Guizhou, 550081, China

^* Corresponding author (Xiaoyi Ma): science_research@126.com; weiweiyao@ignsrr.ac.cn

Abstract

According the current hydropower development plan in China, numbers of hydraulic power plants with height over 300 meters will be built in the western region of China. These hydraulic power plants would be in crucial situation with the problems of high water head, huge discharge and narrow riverbed. Spillway is the most common structure in power plant which is used to drainage and flood release. According to the previous research, the velocity would be reaching to 55 m/s and the discharge can reach to 300 m³/s.m during spillway operation in the dam height over 300 m. The high velocity and discharge in the spillway may have the problems such as atomization nearby, slides on the side slope and river bank, Vibration on the pier, hydraulic jump, cavitation and the negative pressure on the spill way surface. All these problems may cause great disasters for both project and society. This paper proposes a novel method for flood release on high water head spillway which is named Rumei hydropower spillway located in the western region of China. This paper has following components: Determining the type and the layout of the spillway through the perspectives of air entrainment, flow jet angle and water energy dissipation in flushing pond structure. The physical hydraulic model has been used to evaluate spillway design effects.