Hydraulic characteristics of stepped spillway dropshafts

Nowadays, Sponge Cities are being built to provide a valid solution to the glaring drainage problems in the urban areas of China. The hydraulics of a dropshaft, especially discharge capacity, energy dissipation and cavitation damage control, evidently affect its safety and the city's underground tunnel system, due to the high dropshaft and large discharge. The hydraulic characteristics of stepped spillway dropshafts are experimentally investigated for the variable step rotation angles and end sill heights. Flow regimes inside the dropshafts are classified under the different approach flow discharges. The results illustrate that there is high energy dissipation in the present dropshafts with the stepped spillway and the cavitation damage could be effectively avoided thanks to the effect of the air entrainment to the flow.