Latest Developments

Moving Hydraulic Components

Blue Hill Hydraulics is readily involved with the development and application of state-of-the-art techniques for modeling complex fluid flows.  An example of one such development involves the analysis of fluid/structure interactions.  As shown in the figure to the right, fluid/structure interactions can involve moving structures, whose range of motion is specified.

Fluid/structure interactions can also involve the simulation of "free-motion" where the movement of solid bodies are fully coupled with the movement of the fluid body. 

The result shown to the right is from a simulation where floating spheres are captured by a hydraulic jump.  The transient simulation of the hydraulic jump is in itself a complex computation, however, the addition of a number of floating obstacles provides an additional level of complication.

Moving Hydraulic Structures

The simulation of moving structures in concert with the simulation of fluid motion enables the simulation of complete fluid systems.

The example above shows a complete model of a flood control structure in which bathymetric river-bed data has been allied with the static elements of the engineered structure (i.e., wing-walls, ogee crest, and downstream control).  A moving hydraulic structure has been used to simulate the operation of a Tainter Gate and the resultant drawdown of the upstream impoundment.

Another example involves the simulation of a moving component within a clarifier. In this simulation disturbances caused by the movement of a rotating scraper arm have been modeled in conjunction with the settlement of solids within the clarifier. The illustration to the right shows the near-bed velocity distribution in the sludge blanket near the bottom of the clarifier.

The illustration left shows the  disturbance to the sludge blanket when the scraper rotation speed is increased. The moving scraper causes internal pressure fluctuations within the sludge blanket which result in the development of interfacial waves on the surface of the blanket. In the extreme, these disturbances can reduce the effectiveness of the clarifier.