Turbulent Flow Simulations Through Tarbela Dam Tunnels Considering the Effect of Sediment Particles Available to Purchase

The sediments inflow in the Tarbela reservoir is resulting in reduction in water storage capacity and damage to the tunnels carrying water to the power generating units and ultimately to the plant equipment. The turbulent flow in tunnel-2 of the Tarbela Dam Project (TDP) is analyzed for the sediment particles tracking in ANSYS CFX. The particles flow in the tunnel is considered random and striking the tunnel walls at different impact angles. Langrangian particles tracking approach is used for the particles deposition, which is a oneway coupling phenomena as the carrier phase is unaffected by the sediment particles because of particle mass loadings less than 0.2 and unaltered flow field. Reynolds Stress Model (RSM) is used for turbulent modeling as it takes care of anisotropic effects near the tunnel walls and is used in flows with strong curvature, swirling flows, flows with strong acceleration/retardation.