Rollers in low-head dams – Challenges and solutions

Low-head dams exist in many rivers for the purposes of diverting water for open-channel irrigation and providing power plants with cooling water. Flow over low-head dams is quite complex and dangerous rollers often develop down-stream that tend to trap and submerge floating objects. This paper presents an analysis of the problem based on physical and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) modeling and the result of this analysis in the form of design suggestions intended to diminish the hazards associated with rollers.