Reservoir Routing (The Puls Method)

In the case of a reservoir, the volume of storage can be expressed as a function of water
surface elevation by planimetering the reservoir surface area from the topographic map
for successive elevations and multiplying the average area by the water depth.

Also, the outflow of water through the reservoir (in addition to the controlled releases
through sluices, turbines, etc.) depends on the depth of flow over the spillway (Figure 6.4)
and thus on the depth of water in the reservoir. A spillway rating curve of the relation
between discharge and water surface elevation is then be prepared.

Crest spillway

H H
Outflow Crest spillway
Inflow
Storage
L
Dam L

Figure 6.4 Spillway of dam

Since the outflow and the storage are both functions of water surface elevation or
stage, the continuity equation becomes a relation between the known inflow and the
unknown water stage, from which the stage can be computed as a function of time. These
stages can readily be converted to outflows from the spillway rating curve. For this
purpose, Equation 6-2, in numerical form, is rearranged as follows:

I1  I2    2S1 O1    2S 2 

 O2  (6-11)
 t   t 

At the initial time, t = 0 (start of the routing just before flood arrives), I1 = I2 = O1
and S1 corresponds to the storage at the spillway crest elevation. The left-hand side of
the equation has known quantitative that yield a value of (2S 2/t+O2), but still does not
yield O2 and S2 separately. For computational expediency, by combining storage versus
elevation and discharge versus elevation curves, another curve of relation between
(2S/t+O) and surface elevation, or alternatively, (2S2/t+O2) versus O, is constructed on
the same paper for a selected value of t.

Using 2S/t+O and surface elevation curve, for known (2S2/t+O2), the elevation
will be obtained which will provide S2 and Q2 directly from storage versus elevation and
discharge versus elevation curves, respectively. These values will be used as initial
values on the left-hand side of equation (6.11) for the next time step of the routing period.
The computation is repeated for the succeeding routing periods.
 As a slight modification of the procedure above, only two curves, S versus O and
(2S2/t+O2) versus O, are constructed. From these curves it is possible to split
(2S2/t+O2) in O and S.

Example 6.5

Route the inflow hydrograph through a reservoir as indicated in Table 1. The crest height
of the spillway is 50 ft and storage capacity at this level is 116 ft3/s-day. The reservoir
routing curves graph is given in Figure 6.5. Perform calculation until the outflow value is
equal to zero. Based on the obtained result, plot the inflow and outflow hydrographs.

Table Inflow hydrograph

Time (day) 0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0 3.5 4.0
Flow (ft3/s) 0 70 185 360 480 300 165 80 0

Solution 6.5

(1) Construct reservoir routing curves data in the following table.

Reservoir flood routing computation

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8)

Time Inflow, I I1 + I2 Outflow, O Storage, S 2S1/t – O1 2S2/t + O2 Water
Elevation
(days) (ft3/s) (ft3/s) (ft3/s-day) (ft3/s) (ft3/s) (ft)
Before
flood
arrives: (*1) (*2)
Inflow
0.0 0.0 0.0 116 (*3) 465.6 465.6 50.0
hydrograph:
0.0 0 70 0 116 464 536 50.45
0.5 70 255 35 125 465 718 51.20
1.0 185 545 140 146 444 989 51.95
1.5 360 840 285 176 419 1259 52.60
2.0 480 780 400 201 404 1184 52.40
2.5 300 465 380 197 408 873 51.60
3.0 165 245 215 163 437 682 51.05
3.5 80 80 115 142 453 533 50.45
4.0 0 0 30 124 466 466 50.00
4.5 0 0 0 116 466 466 50.00

Answer
Note :-
1. (*1) and (*2) value at first row start with 0.0 because before flood arrives, there was no input and
output of water that entered or left the spillway crest.
2. (*3) value of storage was given as 116 ft3/s-day at 50 ft water surface elevation.
3. Note that time interval, t = 0.5 days.
4. I1 and O1 were the previous inflow and outflow; whilst I2 and O2 were the current inflow and outflow.
 Flood Routing
Figure 6.5 Reservoir routing curve
(2) The routing computations are calculated in table and explained below.
Initially the computation of first outflow is as follows:-

Step 1: Column 3 : Addition of two successive values (previous and

current inflows) of column 2.

Step 2: Column 7 : Addition values of column 3 with the computed

value of column 6.

Step 3: Column 4 : Using the initial elevation value (50 ft) from
& Column 5 column 8, refer Figure 6.5 to obtain storage and
outflow values – value of storage was referred to
▄ - curve line legend with their axis located at
secondary x-axis. Value of outflow was referred to
▲- curve line legend with their axis located at
tertiary x-axis.
 Next, these values were inserted in the routing
table (subsequent row).

Repeat step 1 to step 3 to obtain the subsequent values in

the next table row.

181
(3) The inflow hydrograph (column 2) and the outflow hydrograph (column 4)
from the calculated reservoir routing table are plotted in Figure 6.6.

500
Inflow hydrograph
Outflow hydrograph
400
Discharge (cfs)

300

200

100

0
0 1 2 3 4 5
Time (days)

Figure 6.6 Inflow hydrograph and routed outflow hydrograph