Experimental study on improvement effect of guide wall to water flow in bend of spillway chute

In order to improve water flow in a bend of a spillway chute using a guide wall, modeling experiments with or without a guide wall under conditions of three different bend axial radii, three chute bottom slopes and three flow rates were carried out in this study. Two indexes were calculated, which are the improved water surface uniformity and the reduced rate of water surface difference in concave and convex banks of the cross-section. The results show that: (1) setting a guide wall in a bend can improve water flow in the bend because it increased the water surface uniformity of the cross-section and reduced the water surface difference in the concave and convex banks; (2) the smaller the bend axial radius, the better the water surface improvement effect will be using a guide wall; (3) the steeper the bottom slope, the more cross-sections with less water surface difference; and (4) flow rates have a great influence on water surface improvement in the bend, and the guide wall can improve water flow obviously when the water depth in the starting section of the bend is lower than the height of the guide wall. This study has important implications in engineering design of guide walls.