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Assignment Ovi Sir

This experiment aims to develop generalized specific energy and specific force curves, which are useful for determining critical depth and flow conditions. Specific energy and specific force are defined as the energy and force per unit weight of water at any channel section. Dimensionless curves are developed by normalizing depth, specific energy, and specific force by the critical depth and gravitational terms. Measurements of flow depths and discharge are taken at various channel sections and plotted to obtain the dimensionless curves, which can then be used to determine specific properties for different discharges.

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75 views7 pages

Assignment Ovi Sir

This experiment aims to develop generalized specific energy and specific force curves, which are useful for determining critical depth and flow conditions. Specific energy and specific force are defined as the energy and force per unit weight of water at any channel section. Dimensionless curves are developed by normalizing depth, specific energy, and specific force by the critical depth and gravitational terms. Measurements of flow depths and discharge are taken at various channel sections and plotted to obtain the dimensionless curves, which can then be used to determine specific properties for different discharges.

Uploaded by

232449045
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Experiment No.

Development Of Generalized Specific Energy And Specific Force Curves


8.1 General

The concept of specific energy and specific force are extremely useful in the solution of many problems in
open channel flow. This experiment deals with the development of generalized specific energy and
specific force curve. These curves are useful in determining the critical depth. Critical state gives the state
of flow. Depth above the critical state is known as subcritical state of flow and depth below the critical
state is known as the super critical state of flow. Also critical depth gives us several important conditions
as, specific energy and specific force is minimum at critical depth for a given discharge, discharge is
maximum at critical state for a given specific energy. All these concepts are used in design of transition
and in controlling the flow using different control structures, for example in determining the height of
weir, width of flume, gate opening of sluice gate etc.

8.2 Theory

8.2.1 Specific Energy

Specific energy is defined as the energy per unit weight of water at any section of a channel measured
with respect to the channel bottom. 1f the total energy at any section is given by,

Then the specific energy at any section of a channel is obtained by putting z =0,

8.2.2 Specific energy curve

For a given channel section and discharge, the specific energy is a function of the depth of flow.
When the depth of flow is plotted against the specific energy a specific energy curve is obtained. This
curve has two limbs AC and BC (Fig. 8.1) From Eq. (8.4) it can be seen that, at y→0 , E→∞ . So the
limb AC approaches the horizontal axis asymptotically towards the right. Now, at y→∞, E→∞. But at
this moment E becomes equal to y which implies that the limb BC approaches the E=y line
0
asymptotically. As the slope of E-y line is 1 so it has an inclination of 45 and it passes through the
origin.

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Fig. 8.1: Specific Energy curve
The curve shows that, for a given specific energy, there are two possible depths, the low stage y1 and
the high stage y2 which are called alternate depth of each other.
Differentiating Eq.(8.3) w.r.t. y and simplifying we get,

This condition represents critical state of flow. At this condition, the two alternate depths apparently
become one which is known as the critical depth yc. When the depth of flow is greater than yc, the
velocity of flow is less than the critical velocity for the given discharge and hence the flow is
subcritical. When the depth of flow is less than the critical depth, the flow is supercritical. Here yl, is
the depth of supercritical flow and y2 is the depth of subcritical flow.

8.2.3 Generalized specific energy curve

If the discharge changes the specific energy curve will be changed accordingly, i.e. the curve moves
to right if the discharge is increased and vice versa. In order to develop a generalized specific energy
curve i.e. to use one specific energy curve for different discharge the curve is to be made
dimensionless with respect to the critical depth as the critical depth yc is constant for a given
discharge. So dividing both sides of Eq. (8.4) by ycand after simplification, one gets,

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Equation (8.5) is the generalized form of the relationship between specific energy and depth of flow
in which each term is dimensionless.

8.2.4 Specific force

Specific force is defined as the force at any section which is equal to the sum of the hydrostatic force
and momentum of the flow passing the section per unit time. For a rectangular channel the specific
force is given by,

8.2.5 Specific force curve


For a given discharge and cross section F is a function of y only. Plotting the depth of flow y vs F
produces specific force curve. This curve has two limbs AC and BC. At y→0, F→∞ .So the limb Ac
approaches the horizontal axis asymptotically towards the right. Now, at y→∞, F→∞ but at this
2
moment F becomes proportional to y . So the limb BC rises upward and extends infinitely towards
right.

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8.2.6 Generalized specific force curve

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8.5 Procedure

1. Determine depth of flow at three points as shown in Fig. 8.6 in each of the sections 1 to 7. Find
the average depth for each section.
2. Determine the actual discharge from water meter and compute y,.
2
3. Compute E/yc and F/(yc ρgb) for each of the sections using Eq. (8.5) and (8.7), respectively.
2
4. Plot y/yc vs. E/yc and y/yc vs. F/(yc ρgb) on plain graph papers to get the generalized specific
energy and specific force curves.

8.6 Assignment

1. How can you apply the dimensionless specific energy and specific force curves for computing specific
energy and specific force for different discharge?
2. Can you use the dimensionless specific energy curve to find the specific force and vice-versa?
Explain.

8.7 References

1. Chapter-3(Energy and momentum principle) Open Channel Hydraulics-By Ven Te Chow.

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