Inception Point for Stepped Chute Designs with Multiple Sections of Different Step Heights: Fid-Bau Portal

Inception Point for Stepped Chute Designs with Multiple Sections of Different Step Heights

Hunt, Sherry L. / Kadavy, Kem C.

In the literature, a classical free-surface inception point empirical relationship for smooth chutes serves as a basis for the development of a free-surface inception point relationship for stepped chute applications. This study expands research on the free-surface inception point for stepped chutes with multiple sections with different step heights along the chute bottom surface. Data show that existing free-surface inception point relationships for stepped chutes do not always accurately predict where the free-surface inception point will occur when assuming a single step height in stepped chutes designed with multiple sections with different step heights. Accounting for the different step height sections and assuming a constant rate of boundary layer development for each step height allows the error for predicting the free-surface inception point location to be reduced to $\pm 10 %$ for stepped chutes with two different step height sections. The research results contribute to improving knowledge on the developing free-surface inception point in stepped chutes, and it provides additional validation data for modeling these flows in computational fluid dynamics models.