Pressures on a stepped spillway

Abstract

This paper presents an analysis of the pressure field on the steps of a stepped spillway on an RCC dam. The fundamental component of this study is a series of pressure measurements obtained in the fully-developed zone of skimming flow regime along a reduced-size stepped spillway model constructed at the Department of Hydraulic, Maritime and Environmental Engineering Laboratory of the Technical University of Catalonia (UPC). A mathematical model was fitted to the pressure profiles on the horizontal and vertical faces of the steps. This equation allows designers to estimate the possible negative values of pressure on the vertical and horizontal faces of the steps in the fully-developed zone of skimming flow regime.