Estudio del perfil de flujo a través de un vertedero lateral en canal rectangular mediante modelo numérico

Abstract

The present study proposes the analysis of the flow profile in a rectangular section channel with the presence of a lateral weir through the application of a numerical model. Firstly, the flow profile was estimated in a conventional theoretical way with the implementation of the fourth order Runge-Kutta method to solve the differential equation of spatially varied flow profile with decreasing flow and secondly, the flow profile was obtained with the numerical model, applying computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations for which the OpenFOAM software was used. Three case studies were modeled by varying the flow rate at the channel inlet. The fourth order Runge-Kutta method was used to validate the results. The results show a maximum variation of 4.89% with respect to the conventional method, which can be considered acceptable in hydraulic simulations. A comparative analysis was made between the methodologies for calculating the profile through the weir, where it was concluded that the theoretical equations are better adjusted to the real flow in the channel in areas without turbulence. However, they present greater differences with respect to the numerical simulation due to the simplifications to obtain the differential equation of flow through the weir.