Abstract:

Energy dissipater with abruptly-contracted and expanded cross sections, featured with high
energy dissipation efficiency and convenient construction, has a broad application prospect in China. It is
significant to explore and understand its hydraulic characteristics. This paper presents a study on the
relationships of energy loss coefficient versus geometry parameters for this type of energy dissipaters,
focusing on a comparison of flows in the orifice plate and tunnel plug dissipaters. Results indicate that the
energy dissipation coefficients of plug and orifice both decrease with contraction ratio and that under a fixed
contraction ratio, the energy loss coefficient of orifice plate decrease with its thickness while that of plug
varies little. Under a fixed contraction ratio, the energy dissipation efficiency of orifice plate is higher than
that of plug dissipater.