To verify the validity of the numerical simulation method, the numerical results are compared with the experimental data. The flow field behind the plane gate with submerged discharge, the hydrodynamic pressure process at typical points underneath the gate and the vibration parameters of the gate are acquired by the combination experiment [
21] of three-dimensional particle image velocimetry (3D-PIV) made by TSI Company, the digital pressure sensor with high precision and the multichannel vibrating data acquisition system made by Lance Measurement Technologies Company, respectively.
The PIV test uses the Insight3G software to start the laser, and simultaneously captures the flow field particle images with two PIV-specific cross-frame CCD cameras. The autocorrelation or cross-correlation principle is used to extract the image of flow characteristics. Finally vector diagram of transient flow velocity in the measured range is obtained by professional post-processing software, such as Tecplot and Matlab. The maximum emission frequency of the laser is set to 14.5 Hz. In this test, a certain concentration of SiO2 is selected as the tracer particle, and the particle size is 10–15 μm. The three-axis accelerometer is directly attached to the upstream surface of the gate. The accuracy of the pressure sensor and accelerometer both are ±0.1%FS, and the sampling interval of the pulsating pressure and the vibration displacement are 0.01 s and 0.001 s, respectively. Three instruments are tested simultaneously.
3.1. Flow Field Distribution
The calculation length after the lift gate is 920 mm and width B of the flume is 100 mm. The computation results of the time-averaged surface profiles with the whole flow passage of the modeling after the gate in
U = 0.059 are shown in
Figure 4. Blue represents the water phase and red represents the gas phase.
Figure 5 shows the time-averaged flow profile comparison behind the gate of section
z = 0 mm for the calculation and experiment of
U = 0.059. The maximum and minimum of relative difference of the height between the calculation and the test values of the flow profile are 4.8% and 0.16%, respectively, which shows that the VOF method can simulate the water-air interface well.
The calculational time-averaged streamlines on sections
z = 0 mm and
z = 35 mm in different cases are presented in
Figure 6. According to (a), (b), and (c) in
Figure 6, there is only a vortex on section
z = 35 mm in the time-averaged flow field behind the plane gate in the
x direction, but there are two vortices on section
z = 0 mm that are within the 300 mm range. At different sections in the same case, the vertical distances of the vortex center from the
x-axis are approximately the same. With the
e/H increasing, the vertical distance of the vortex center from the
x-axis increases gradually.
The size of the PIV calibration target is 200 mm × 200 mm. Due to the size limitation, it is impossible to test the vortices in the slot and at the bottom edge of the gate by PIV, so the computational results of only the vortices behind the gate are compared carefully with those of the three-dimensional PIV test. Both the simulated and the experimental velocity vector diagrams are achieved at 20.6 s.
Figure 7 shows the instantaneous streamlines behind the gate on the same section
z = 0 mm for the calculation and the experiment. The numerical simulation can make up for the drawback of losing the velocity vector by 3D-PIV positioning. When compared with the experimental results, the vortex center, which is closest to the gate obtained by the simulation, is lower in the
y direction under
U = 0.059, but this distance is basically same for the other two cases. On the whole, the numerical simulation still obtained the most ideal vortex information.
It can be seen from the instantaneous streamlines in
Figure 7a–c that there are the same number of vortexes on section
z = 0 mm between the computation and the experiment. Under
U = 0.059, the numerical simulation captures the phenomenon of the vortex detachment from the gate’s bottom edge, but there is no such phenomenon when
U = 0.355 or
U = 0.730. Therefore, when the
e/H and
U reach a certain extent, the vortex shedding phenomenon can be generated from the bottom edge of the gate.
Normalizing the turbulent kinetic energy by the square of the mean flow velocity of the gate downstream section,
Figure 8 presents the computational normalized turbulent kinetic energy distribution on section
z = 0 mm and section
z = 35 mm. Turbulent kinetic energy under the gate on section z = 0 mm is higher than the value on section
z = 35 mm. The different magnitude of turbulent kinetic energy is one of the significant factors affecting the gate vibration extremum. The experiment proved that the extremum of vibration displacement on section
z = 0 mm is larger than that on section
z = 35 mm.
3.2. Hydrodynamic Pressure
The measuring points of hydrodynamic pressure just below the gate are point 1 (0, 0, 0 mm) and point 2 (0, 0, 35 mm). The digital pressure sensor with high precision is used to test the hydrodynamic pressure with a sampling frequency of 0.01 s, while the monitoring points are also set up in the numerical calculation.
Figure 9 shows the time history curves of the fluctuating pressure coefficient of points 1 and 2 in 10 s.
Cp = (
p −
)/0.5
ρv2, where
Cp is the fluctuating pressure coefficient, p is the instantaneous pressure,
is the average pressure,
ρ is the water flow density, and
v is the average velocity of the exit section. Under the same case, the fluctuating pressure of point 1 is stronger than that of point 2. The time to reach the extreme of the two points is out of synchronization.
Figure 10 shows the normalized power spectrum density curve of the pressure for point 1 in different cases.
St is the Strouhal number and
St = f · L/
, Where
f is the frequency of the pressure pulsating,
L is the characteristic length and taken as the gate opening, and
is the mean velocity of section just below the gate. With the
e/H or
U increasing, the energy of pulsating pressure of point 1 decreases. The computational Strouhal numbers for dominant frequencies of the pressure are 0.332 × 10
−3, 2.217 × 10
−3, 1.545 × 10
−3 with the corresponding cases of
U = 0.059, 0.355, 0.730. Accordingly, the experimental Strouhal numbers for dominant frequencies of the pressure are 0.337 × 10
−3, 2.242 × 10
−3, 1.552 × 10
−3 in corresponding cases. The Strouhal number difference for main frequency of the pressure between the computational and the experimental results is very small.
In order to illustrate the influence of the gate slot on the flow field and the gate vibration, both calculation and experiment are carried out on the filling of the slots underneath the gate (unslotted).
Figure 11 shows the time history curve of the slotted and unslotted pressure pulsating coefficients in
U = 0.059. It can be found that the maximum values of the slotted pressure pulsation coefficients for both points 1 and 2 were larger than those of the without a slot. The characteristic values of the pressure pulsating coefficients (slotted and unslotted) for both the experiment and for the calculation in
U = 0.059 are presented in
Figure 12. When comparing the value of the computational and the synchronous experimental results, the relative difference is within 10%, which indicates that the numerical simulation results meet the basic requirements.
In the experiment, the dominant frequency of the pressure at the measuring points underneath the gate are only 0.025~1.245 Hz, and the dominant frequency of the pressure at the measuring points behind the gate are only 0.183~14.63 Hz. The natural frequencies of the gate vibration by the modal analysis are 247.43 Hz, 529.85 Hz, 1086.6 Hz, 1280.6 Hz, 1605.1 Hz, and 1963.1 Hz, respectively. The natural frequency of the gate vibration is far from the dominant frequency of the flow pressure, so it would not have produced resonance.
Figure 13a presents the computational pressure distribution and streamlines in the gate slot for different level cross sections (
y/
e = 0.067,
y/
e = 0.2,
y/
e = 0.333,
y/
e = 0.467,
y/
e = 0.6,
y/
e = 0.733) from the bottom to the top in
y direction for
U = 0.059. It can be seen from the superimposed vortex diagram that the low-pressure zone of the vortex gradually enlarges from the bottom to the top, which is shaped like a funnel and it shifted to the downstream. The pressure is lowest in the vortex center where it is also most prone to generate cavitation in the gate slot. Due to the water impacting the slot from the left to the right, the pressure is highest at the right of the slot. The closer to the bottom the place is, the higher the pressure is. Under
U = 0.355 (
Figure 13b) and
U = 0.730 (
Figure 13c), the range of the low pressure and the high pressure zones in the gate slot is much smaller than that in
U = 0.059. The funnel vortex of
U = 0.355 still exists, but the center of the vortex is shifted to the upstream from the bottom to the top, and the center pressure of the bottom vortex is relatively large. For
U = 0.730, the centerline of the vortex is similar to the spiral line, and the funnel vortex is not obvious.
The maximum vibration displacement of the gate with a submerged condition in the x direction is not due to the resonance, but it is due to the mixed vortex-induced process, including the vortices behind the gate, in the gate slot and at the gate’s bottom edge. It can be seen from the above analysis that the numerical simulation method in this paper can obtain not only the pressure fluctuation distribution, but also a more complete flow structure, such as multiple vortices of the sluice flow, and it forms the excitation force of the plane gate vibration.
3.3. Vibration of the Gate
Define the non-dimensional coefficient Kd = (d − )/σd, where d is vibration displacement, is the average vibration displacement, and σd is the vibration standard deviation. Point A, which is located on the central axis of the upstream surface of the gate and 10 mm away from the bottom edge, is used to study the response of the gate vibration.
The normalized power spectrum density curve of vibration displacement for point A in
U = 0.059, which is obtained by the computation and the experiment, is shown in
Figure 14. In the experiment, the acceleration sensor and the multichannel data acquisition instrument were used to monitor the acceleration of the gate vibration in the
x direction and
y direction. The vibration displacement is achieved by the second integral of the acceleration. The computational Strouhal number for dominant frequency of vibration displacement in
x direction is 2.582 with the corresponding experiment of 2.660. In addition, the computational Strouhal number for dominant frequency of vibration displacement in
y direction is 3.724 with the corresponding experiment of 3.768. The Strouhal number for main frequency of the vibration displacement between the computational and the experimental results is closer.
Figure 15 plots the time-history curve of the vibration displacement coefficient
Kd in the
x direction and in the
y direction of point A, with and without slots, by using the numerical simulation. It can be seen that the maximum value of the vibration displacement coefficient of the plane gate with a slot is larger than that of the plane gate without a slot in both the
x and
y directions. When there is no slot, the maximum value of the
x direction vibration displacement coefficient appears at 12.7 s and the minimum value appears at 21.8 s. The maximum value in the
y direction appears at 14.7 s and the minimum value appears at 17.6 s. The moment when the vibration displacement coefficient of the
x direction and the
y direction appears is out of sync.