Experimental Investigation of the Hydraulic Performance of a Hydraulic-Jump-Stepped Spillway

For a traditional stepped spillway, low energy dissipation and cavitation damage may occur when the unit discharge is larger than a limit due to reduced air entrainment in the flow. In the present work, a new type of stepped spillway called hydraulic-jump-stepped spillway (HJSS) was developed, and the air was efficiently entrained into the flow by means of a hydraulic jump in the aeration basin, which was an aeration element of this stepped spillway. Compared with the traditional stepped spillway, various aspects of the hydraulic performance of the HJSS were experimentally investigated, including the flow pattern, energy dissipation, air entrainment characteristics and time-averaged pressure. Physical model results demonstrated that the HJSS achieved a higher energy dissipation, a more favorable air entrainment performance, and a more reasonable pressure distribution. The HJSS successfully increased the unit discharge from 50–60m2/s for a traditional stepped spillway to 101.47 m2/s.