Investigation of Bed Pressure Fluctuations and Turbulence Distributions in a Gated Box Culvert

Turbulence distributions and pressure fluctuations downstream of a sluice gate in a culvert flow with a fully submerged hydraulic jump are investigated for different Reynolds numbers based on gate height. Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) is used to capture turbulence distributions and pressure transducers are used to monitor pressures and pressure fluctuations on the bed. Incursions of low velocity flow from the recirculation zone above the culvert inlet cause large spikes in negative and positive pressure. A finite-volume method is applied to numerically solve the governing equations for flows with the same conditions as previously run experiments. The volume of fluid (VOF) method is used to calculate the free surface in the forebay. To model turbulence stresses, Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) turbulence models are employed. Reynolds stress turbulence closure Model (RSM) and Realizable k-ε turbulence model simulate the submerged hydraulic recirculation zone and the tail water free surface well, as validated with PIV experimental results.