Hydraulic characteristics of energy dissipation systems

Hydraulic structure design deals with the water flow and its effects on the built and natural environment. The construction of various water structures causes scour downstream due to the erosive action of water flowing over or through these hydraulic structures. Energy dissipating structures are the common engineering solutions applied to a water system to reduce environmental impact like local scours. The baffle blocks for instance, are normally provided at the downstream section of high velocity flow (supercritical) simply to convert it to low velocity flow (subcritical). This paper aims at studying the impact of scour depths caused by high velocity flows of an energy dissipation system. The system comprises several energy dissipation components such as the baffle blocks, chute blocks, steps and concrete apron. The hydraulic characteristics of flows surrounding the system were critically studied. The flow was studied under moderate flows (12 to 15 L/s). The effectiveness of the system was measured based on the percentage loss of energy captured by each energy dissipation component.