Introduction :

What for is a Spillway required?

A spillway is necessary to discharge floods and
prevent the dam from being damaged.
Gates on the spillway crest, together with sluice ways
at lower elevations, permit the operator to regulate the
release of water downstream for various beneficial
purposes.
A spillway is the safety valve for a dam. It must have
a capacity to discharge major floods without causing
damage to the dam.
A spillway may be controlled or uncontrolled.
Controlled spillway is provided with crest gates so
that the outflow rate can be adjusted.
Requirements of a spillway :
1) The spillway must have sufficient capacity.
2) It must be hydraulically and structurally
adequate.
3) It must be so located that it provides safe
disposal of water without causing erosion on
the downstream.

4) The bounding surfaces of the spillway must be

erosion resistant to withstand the high scouring
velocities created by the steep fall of sheets of
water from the reservoir surface to tail water.
5) Usually some energy dissipation device is to be
provided for dissipation of energy on the
downstream side of the spillway.
Design Capacity of a Spillway
The required capacity of the spillway depends on:

Spillway Design Flood

Capacity of discharging outlets
Available Storage Capacity

Spillway Design Flood depends on:

degree of flood protection that is to be provided??
What is the acceptable Risk??
Possibility of a dam break and the consequences!!
Types of spillway
1) Free overfall or straight drop spillway.
2) Overflow or Ogee spillway.
3) Chute or open channel or Trough spillway.

4) Side channel spillway.

5) Shaft spillway.
6) Conduit or Tunnel spillway.
7) Siphon spillway.
OGEE Spillway
It is a section of dam designed to permit water to fall
over its crest. Overflow spillways are widely used on
gravity, arch, and buttress dam. Some earth dams have
a concrete gravity section specifically designed to
serve as a spillway. The design of spillway for low
dams is not usually critical, and a variety of simple
crest patterns may be used. However, in high dams, it
is important that the over flowing water be guided
smoothly over the crest with a minimum of
turbulence. If the overflowing sheet breaks contact
with the spillway surface, a vacuum will form at the
point of separation and cavitation may occur(fig 1.a).
Cavitation plus the vibration form the alternate
making and breaking of contact between the sheet of
water and the face of the dam, may result in serious
structural damage.

Fig 1.a Ogee Spillway when flow exceeds design

capacity
Cavities filled with vapour, air, and other gases will
form in a liquid whenever the absolute pressure of the
liquid is close to the vapour pressure. This
phenomenon, cavitation is likely to occur where high
velocities cause reduced pressures. The cavity, on
moving downstream side may reach a region where
the absolute pressure is much higher. This causes the
vapour in the cavity to condense and return to liquid
with a resulting implosion, or collapse of the cavity.
When cavity collapses, extremely high pressures
result. Some of the implosive activity will occur at the
surfaces of the passage and in the crevices and pores
of the boundary material.

Under a continual bombardment of these implosions,

the surface undergoes fatigue failure and small
particles are broken away, giving the surface a spongy
appearance. This damaging action of cavitation is
called Pitting.

The ideal overflow spillway would take the form of

the underside of the nappe of a sharp-crested weir,
when the flow rate corresponds to the maximum
design capacity of the spillway. (figs.1.b , 1.c , 1d)
show an ogee that closely approximates the ideal.
More exact profiles may be found in more extensive
treatments of the subject.
The reverse curve on the downstream face of the
spillway should be smooth and gradual. A radius of
about one fourth of the spillway height would be
sufficient. Structural design of an Ogee spillway is
essentially the same as the design of concrete gravity

section. Fluid friction is usually small in comparison

with other forces acting on the section. The change of
momentum of the flow at the reverse curvature creates
a dynamic force that is substantial. Recent
development of overflow spillways show that a ramp
of proper shape and size when properly located (fig.
1.e) will direct the water away from the spillway
surface to form a cavity. To be effective, air must be
freely admitted to the cavity. The result is that air is
entrained in the water, the water bulks up, and when if
return to the spillway surface, there is no cavitation
problem. On very high spillways these ramps may be
used in tandem.

Fig 1.e Ogee Spillway with ramp to provide

protection from cavitation

By placing a projecting corbel on the upstream face of

the spillway section (fig 1.f) some saving in concrete
can be effected.

Fig 1.f Ogee Spillway with corbel

The discharge of an overflow spillway is given by the
weir equation, Q = CwLh3/2
The effect of approach velocity can be obtained by the
following equation.

Where,
Q = discharge (m3/s)
C = co-efficient of spillway.
L = length of the crest (m)
h = head over the spillway (m).
V0 = approach velocity

Fig.2 Variation of discharge coefficient with head

for an ogee-spillway crest.

Scour Protection below Spillways :

Water flowing over a spillway or through a sluiceway
is capable or causing severe erosion of the stream bed
and banks below the dam. Consequently the dam and
its appurtenant works must be so designed that
harmful erosion is minimized.
General Considerations and Modelling of Scour
Protection
The degree of scour protection that needs to be
provided immediately downstream of a dam depends
largely on the amount of scour expected and the
damage that might result from this scour. The
development of scour depends on: the character of the
stream-bed material, the velocity distribution and the
frequency with which scouring flows occur. Thus the
results of model tests must be interpreted in the light
or the expected flows at the dam site. If serious scour
conditions are likely only after many years after
construction, then, it may not be wise to provide
expensive protection works during the initial
construction.
Solid rock is usually resistant to scour, although if the
rock has marked bedding planes it may not endure
high-velocity flow. Loose earth and rock are
vulnerable to the erosive action of flowing water and

may scour severely at velocities as low as 0.6 to 1.0

m/s. Movable-bed model studies with gravel, sand, or
powdered coal to simulate the river bed may be used
to predict velocity distributions and scour patterns in
the prototype. Ordinary hydraulic models, however,
do not reproduce effects dependent on surface tension,
such as air entrainment and spray formation; nor do
they reproduce pressure effects such as cavitation.
Special glass-enclosed models in which the pressure
can be reduced below atmospheric are used to study
cavitation.The effectiveness of various energydissipating devices may also bc estimated from trials
on hydraulic models.
Hydraulic Jump
The expression for the hydraulic jump in a horizontal
channel
of
rectangular
cross
section
is

where y1 and y2 are the depths before and after the

jump, respectively and V1 is the mean velocity in the
water before the jump. The approximate depth of flow
y1 at the toe of a spillway may be found by applying
the energy equation along a streamline between point
A on the surface of the reservoir and point B at the toe
of the spillway. Neglecting friction and velocity of

approach,

the

energy

equation

is

The average velocity of flow V1 at the toe of the

spillway is Q/y1B. By substituting values of h and Q
in the energy equation, the corresponding values of y1
and V1 can be found. The hydraulic jump equation
may then be used to find the depth after jump.. The
energy dissipated in the jump is equal to the difference
in specific energy before and after the jump. Figure 9
shows a plot of energy lost as a function of h/Hd. This
shows that a fully developed hydraulic jump below an
ogee spillway is particularly effective as an energy
dissipator in situations where h is small compared
with the height of the spillway.
The measures necessary to control erosion and dissipate
the energy of the spillway flow are dependent on the
relation between the upper conjugate depth and tailwater
depth. The tailwater rating curve is dependent on
downstream channel conditions and can be determined
from hydraulic computations or by measurements. For a
given situation, there are five possible cases based on the
location of the upper conjugate depth with respect to the
tailwater rating.
Five Possible Cases:

(i) Conjugate depth & tail water depth coincide.

(ii) Conjugate depth is always below tail water.
(iii) Conjugate depth is always above tail water.
(iv) Conjugate depth is above tail water at low flows and
below at high flows.
(v) Conjugate depth is below tail water at low flows and
above at high flows.
Class 1 :
CD and TWD coincide - ideal and rare in practice.
Hydraulic jump at toe of spillway.
A simple concrete apron.
Training walls for the formation of perfect jump.

Class - 2 :
-Jump will be drowned by the TW
-Less energy dissipation
-Sloping apron above stream bed level.

Apron with an upward turned Bucket

Class - 3 :
- A secondary dam may be built d/s of the main dam
to increase the tail water and cause the jump form at
the toe of the main dam.

- A sloping apron between main and secondary dams.

- Another method, is to increase TWD by excavating
pool or stilling basin d/s of the spillway.Bottom of the
pool may be properly sloped to assure a jump at all
discharges.
- Chute blocks - Break up flow
- Baffle blocks - Tend to stabilize the jump
- End soil - backs up water to create a jump

Fig. 12 Appurtenances in a stilling basin.

Class - 4 :
Secondary dam + sloping apron
Class - 5 :
Secondary dam or a stilling pool ( to increase tail
water depths for high flows).

Fig.13 Upperconjugate depth and tail-water depth

vs. discharge for the spillway.
Examples
1. Design a suitable section for the overflow
portion of a concrete gravity dam having the
downstream face sloping at 0.7H:1V. The design
discharge for the spillway is 8000cumecs. The
height of the spillway crest is kept at RL 204.0 m.
The average river bed level at the site is 100.0 m.
The spillway consists of 6 spans L=60m. Thickness
of each pier may be taken to be 2.5 m. Neglect
velocity of approach. Assume C=2.2

Solution:

Now,
Assume

Then

The height of the spillway crest above river bed = Hd

= 204 - 100 = 104.0 m.
Upstream Slope: The upstream face of the dam
and spillway is proposed to be kept vertical.
However, a batter of 1:10 will be provided from
stability considerations in the lower part. This
batter is small and will not have any affect on
coefficient of discharge.

Effective length of spillway: ( Le ) can now be

worked out as Le = L -2 ( N * Kp + Ka ) * h' .
Kp = 0.01 , Ka = 0.1 and No. of piers = N = 5.
Also assuming that the actual value of h' is slightly
more than the approximate value worked out ( i.e.
15.5 ) say let it be 16.3 m . Now,

To be more accurate, one more trial may be

attempted.
Round off the design head as 16.4m.
Computing Velocity of Approach ,

Approach Velocity head:

This is very small and was, therefore neglected.

Downstream profile: The W.E.S downstream

profile for a vertical upstream face is given by the
following equation.

. . . Eqn. 1

Before we determine the various coordinates of the

downstream profile, we shall first determine the
tangent point.
The downstream slope of the dam is given to be
0.7H : 1V.
Hence,
Differentiating the equation of the downstream
profile with respect to x, we get

For x = 0 to 27.4 m, y coordinates are worked out

in the table below, using eqn. 1
(x)
metres

(y = x
/21.6
)
metres

1.85

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
12
14
16
18
20
22
24
26
27.4

0.046
0.166
0.354
0.6
0.905
1.274
1.71
2.162
2.684
3,24
4.575
6.02
7.88
9.74
11.85
14.35
16.55
19.19
21.15

Upstream Profile: The upstream profile be

designed as per equation, i.e.,

Using h' = 16.4 m, we get

. . . Eqn. 2
The curve should go upto

Various values of x such as x = -0.5, x = -1.0, x = 2.0, x = -3.0, x = -4.0, x = -4.443 are substituted in
eqn. 2 and corresponding values of y are worked
out, as given in the table below,
( x ) in
metres
-0.5
-1.0
-2.0
-3.0
-4.0

(y) in
metres
0.06
0.097
0.28
0.65
1.34

-4.443

2.07

The profile of the spillway has been determined

and plotted as shown in fig. 2. A reverse curve at
the toe with a radius equal to Hd/4 = 104/4 = 26 m
can be drawn at angle 60 degree as shown.
Aeration pipes (say 25mm pipes at 3 m c/c) can be
installed along the spillway face below the gate lip,
so as to prevent the development of negative
pressures. The energy dissipation arrangements
have not been shown. They should be designed
depending upon the position of jump height curve
and tail water curve. A ski-jump bucket or an
apron may be provided as per the prevailing
conditions.

2. An overflow ogee spillway of height 15m is discharging water with a head of 2m over the
crest. A reverse curvature of radius 4m, subtending an angle of 60 degree at the centre, is
provided at the spillway bottom as shown in fig. 3 . Assuming discharge coefficient for the
spillway as 2.2, determine the magnitude of the dynamic force on the curved portion AB of
the spillway.

Fig. 3
Solution:
The discharge over the spillway is given by
Q = C.L.H3/2
Discharge per unit length
q = C.H3/2
= 2.2 * 23/2 = 6.23 cumec/m.

Let d1 and d2 be the water depths, V1 and V2 be flow velocities at A and B respectively.
Neglecting any loss of energy and the head due to velocity of approach and applying
Bernoulli's theorem between upstream surface and at sections A and B respectively we get,

But

or

or

or

and

or

Solving the equation (i) by hit and trial we get,

d1= 0.365 m.
Similarly, solving the equation (ii), i.e

or by hit and trial we get,

d2= 0.344 m.
Now the hydrostatic force P1 and P2 per unit length are given by

Resolving forces in horizontal direction:

Algebraic sum of all the forces in the horizontal direction

The rate of change of momentum per unit length in the horizontal direction

But V1 = q/d1
= 6.23/0.365
=17.06 m/s
V2 = q/d2
= 6.33/0.344

=18.12 m/s
Equating (iii) and (iv) we get

Absence of '-ve' sign indicates that the assumed direction is correct.

Resolving all forces in vertical direction:
The weight of the water in the curved element AB

Resolving all forces in vertical direction we get

Absence of negative sign indicates that the assumed direction of F is correct. i.e vertically
upward.

Resultant force =
= 122661 N.

Hence the resultant dynamic force is equal to 122661 N and acts at an angle tan1
(106894/60162)= 60o.6o with horizontal in the upward direction as shown in the figure
below