Date of Award:

8-2026

Document Type:

Thesis

Degree Name:

Master of Science (MS)

Department:

Civil and Environmental Engineering

Committee Chair(s)

Zachary B. Sharp

Committee

Zachary B. Sharp

Committee

Michael C. Johnson

Committee

Austin W. Ball

Abstract

When water is released from hydraulic structures such as dams water jets are formed and land on the downstream surfaces. When these jets land there is high potential for erosion or scour. Scour has the potential to compromise the structure and cause the uncontrolled release of water that can endanger downstream communities and infrastructure.

Engineers use tools including computational fluid dynamics (CFD) to inform their designs to mitigate the risk of scour. This study compares how well CFD is able to model the forces created by a water jet by comparing the results to laboratory collected physical data. To make this comparison six unique geometries were tested across three jet velocities. Horizontal force and dynamic pressure at three different locations were collected from physical and CFD models and compared.

Results showed that CFD consistently predicted higher forces than those observed experimentally and did not capture difference in force for surface sizes. Pressures comparisons varied depending on geometry and jet velocity where the jet landed. CFD underpredicted pressures downstream of the landing of jet. Overall, the findings indicate that while CFD is a valuable tool for analyzing complex flow problems such as water jets, it benefits from validation against physical modeling to ensure accurate predictions.

Download

Share

COinS

Copyright for this work is retained by the student. If you have any questions regarding the inclusion of this work in the Digital Commons, please email us at .