The Role of CFD Technique in the Effect of Baffle Blocks on Flow Dynamics

The flow accumulated behind a water body or released from a high level has a very high amount of hydraulic energy. Since this energy causes high speeds in the flow, it creates high pressure and friction conditions. As a result, it creates scour, erosion and cavitation problems on the water structure or downstream. This is an undesirable situation. If precautions are not taken, it causes the water structure to collapse completely or the facilities and structures around it to suffer serious damage. In field applications, energy-breaking structures are constructed to bypass such negative situations. Chute channels, drop beds or energy-breaking basins are the most preferred of these structures. Blocks placed especially on chute channels or inside energy-breaking basins are quite effective in absorbing the energy of the flow. These blocks absorb the energy of the flow by creating turbulence inside them. Sometimes this turbulence situation is achieved by the flow hitting the blocks and sometimes by separating the flow. The aim here is to reduce the supercritical velocities to subcritical. This can only be achieved by providing a hydraulic jump. In this study, energy breaking situations of single-row and double-row block arrangements were investigated in a numerical environment. For this, 3D solutions were obtained using Ansys-Fluent software. A T-shaped block geometry was selected as the block shape. Such a block type was preferred to increase the surface parts of the current hitting the blocks and thus to observe the energy absorption situation. According to the results of the study, the single-row block type provided more energy absorption. It can be said that this study will be an important base in determining the current and block interactions that cannot be measured experimentally before moving on to field applications.