Experiments and simulations of the flow velocity distribution downstream the Xiluodu hydropower station

Sammanfattning: Hydropower is a more environmental friendly way of producing electric power than many other alternatives today. Though, the effects of constructing mega dams are much tangible for the local eco systems in addition to changing many people’s lives forever. In order to prevent floods, riverbank erosions or landslides, proper investigations of the environmental impact from dam constructions must be performed. One of the key parameters in such investigations is the flow discharge velocity. This master thesis treats experimental measurements and numerical simulations of the velocity downstream a model of Xiluodu dam. The Xiluodu dam is a mega dam under construction in China and will have a total capacity of 12 600 MW when completed. The model is in scale 1:100 and the experiments have been performed at Department of Hydraulic Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China. The velocity profile shows that the velocity in the middle of the river is larger than the velocity at the surface and near the riverbank. The comparison between the measured and the simulated velocities shows a difference of less than 20 percent in almost all points which can be considered as a good result. In those points where the difference is more than 20 percent, this is believed to be due to the position of these points. Some of them were located near a vortex and others very close to the bottom. This is a problem when sparsely measured topography in combination with linear interpolation makes the boundaries of the simulations incorrect. In order to perform better simulations, more densely topography data and better flow boundary conditions should be used. More measuring points of the velocity could also improve the result.