Study of the Sarough dam fusegates

Dam construction industry has concerned specific attention to engineering economy, over the past years; so in this direction the topic of emergency fusegates has considered as a new technology since 1989, in all over the world. Fusegate is a simple, safe, and robust structure in increasing live storage or spillway capacity and a mechanical equivalent of a fuse plug. Although the installation of gates with different types and heights might practically be difficult, but its lower annual cost, flexibility in operation and smaller wasted water resulting from gates tipping justifies their selection as a more desirable solution. In this paper, the fusegates of Sarough storage dam (Googerdchi) in West-Azerbaijan province is studied an analyzed. The fusegates are installed for the first time in Iran, on Sarough dam spillway instead of radial gates. By installing these gates, the storage capacity of the reservoir increased up to gates overhead level for about 10 mcm. Flood hydrograph in six different return periods (from 2 to 1000 years) of the dam, shows that dam capacity has increased by equipping with fusegates. In addition, a comparison discharge-time-reservoir level chart between 1st to 6th individual fusegate overthrow periods is done.