TDG generation in a ski-jump spillway with a fully or partial-flip bucket

Ski-jump spillways are frequently used as discharge structures for high dams during floods with high energy heads. The selection of bucket types at the end of spillways has a pronounced effect on the hydraulics of jet characteristics, such as trajectories and entrained air features. However, there is no literature reporting how changes in the bucket types influence TDG generation. This study compares the hydraulic characteristics and TDG mass transfer properties of a hydraulic project under construction using both the traditional fully-flip bucket and the partial-flip bucket configurations. The results indicate that, the use of the partial-flip bucket at the end of the spillway significantly disperses the water flow and yields better energy dissipation effects. At low flow rates (lower than 400 m³/s for the dam in this study), there is little difference in the downstream TDG saturation between the traditional fully-flip bucket and the partial-flip bucket, the average difference is 1.6 % in three cases with a low flow rate. However, at high flow rates (higher than 400 m³/s), the partial-flip bucket generates more TDG compared to the traditional fully-flip bucket, reaching up to 6.2 % at the maximum flow rate. This phenomenon stems from significant changes in the hydrodynamics of the stilling basin at high flow rates due to variations in the flip bucket type. When strict control of TDG generation is necessary downstream of dams, the use of the partial-flip bucket should be carefully considered. This is because, at high flow rates, the partial-flip bucket might result in higher TDG saturation than the fully-flip bucket.