Experimental and Numerical Analysis of Egg-Shaped Sewer Pipes Flow Performance

A Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) model was developed to analyze the open-channel flow in a new set of egg-shaped pipes for small combined sewer systems. The egg-shaped cross-section was selected after studying several geometries under different flow conditions. Once the egg-shaped cross-section...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Manuel Regueiro-Picallo, Juan Naves, Jose Anta, Jerónimo Puertas, Joaquín Suárez
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2016-12-01
Series:Water
Subjects:
Online Access:http://www.mdpi.com/2073-4441/8/12/587
Description
Summary:A Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) model was developed to analyze the open-channel flow in a new set of egg-shaped pipes for small combined sewer systems. The egg-shaped cross-section was selected after studying several geometries under different flow conditions. Once the egg-shaped cross-section was defined, a real-scale physical model was built and a series of partial-full flow experiments were performed in order to validate the numerical simulations. Furthermore, the numerical velocity distributions were compared with an experimental formulation for analytic geometries, with comparison results indicating a satisfactory concordance. After the hydraulic performance of the egg-shaped pipe was analyzed, the numerical model was used to compare the average velocity and shear stress against an equivalent area circular pipe under low flow conditions. The proposed egg shape showed a better flow performance up to a filling ratio of h/H = 0.25.
ISSN:2073-4441