Hydraulic experiments on spillway weir profiles

Spillway weirs are the system for regulating the flow in open channel flow passages. Weirs are commonly used to alter the flow of rivers to prevent floods, measure discharge and also in nuclear reactors for uniform cooling purposes. This paper describes the hydraulic experiments conducted for finding the air entrainment on water under laminar flow conditions in open channel flow passage with various profiles of spillway at flow rates in the range of 100–650 lpm. The concept of the spillway system allows stabilisation of the free level of water and avoids variation in the free level of water along the flow passage as a function of flow rate. The main problem in the spillway is the profiling of weir crest. The criteria that need to be satisfied are: (i) there should be no flow separation from the crest and (ii) there should be a uniform circumferential flow to avoid flow asymmetry in the passage. Separation of flow leads to large impact velocity of the falling water, which would lead to large-scale entrainm...