Influence of Sluice Gate Contraction Coefficient

on Distinguishing Condition
C. H. Lin1; J. F. Yen2; and C. T. Tsai3

Abstract: Sluice gates are widely used for flow control in open channels. Flow through the gate may be free or submerged depending
on tailwater depth. One may determine whether the flow will be free or submerged by determining the maximum tailwater level that
permits free flow. This is called the distinguishing condition. This paper derives a theoretical equation for the distinguishing condition
including the contraction coefficient as a parameter, based on the basic equations for free flow and the hydraulic jump. The equation is
investigated using experimental data from two different gate types. The results show that the contraction coefficient varies with gate type
and that this affects the distinguishing condition. The results also show that for a given upstream depth, tainter gates 共radial gates兲 are less
likely to become submerged than vertical gates due to larger contraction coefficients. The present study results are useful in the design and
operation of sluice gates.
DOI: 10.1061/共ASCE兲0733-9437共2002兲128:4共249兲
CE Database keywords: Contraction; Gates; Free flow; Submerged flow.

Introduction The contraction coefficient for sluice gates has been previ-
ously investigated through theoretical analysis and laboratory ex-
Sluice gates are widely used for controlling discharge and water
periments 共Henry 1950; Benjamin 1955; Henderson 1966; Ra-
depth in irrigation and drainage channels 共Henderson 1966; Sub-
jaratnam and Subramanya 1967兲. Due to the existence of
ramanya 1982; Tsai 1990兲. Flows through the gate may be free or
boundary layer growth 共Benjamin 1955兲 and the energy loss up-
submerged depending on the tailwater depth, as illustrated in
stream of the gate 共Rajaratnam 1977; Montes 1997兲, experimental
Figs. 1 and 2, and the discharge coefficients for the two cases are
values of the contraction coefficient may be slightly higher than
different 共Henry 1950; Rajaratnam and Subramanya 1967;
the theoretical ones. The contraction coefficient varies with gate
Swamee 1992兲. The discharge through a sluice gate is affected not
opening, upstream specific energy, and gate type. For a sharp-
only by the upstream depth for free flow but by both the upstream
edged gate, the contraction coefficient has generally been taken as
and downstream depths for submerged flow 共Henderson 1966;
0.60 共Henry 1950兲 or 0.61 共Henderson 1966; Rajaratnam and
Subramanya 1982; Tsai 1990兲. Similarly, for a given discharge,
Subramanya 1967兲. The coefficient was found to range from 0.61
the upstream depth is independent of tailwater depth in free flow,
to 1.00 for tainter gates 共Henderson 1966兲 and from 0.60 to 0.75
but increases with the tailwater depth when a gate operates in a
for planar sluice gates depending on the streamline angle with the
submerged condition. To avoid upstream surcharge and achieve
horizontal 共Montes 1997兲.
accurate discharge control, one must be able to determine whether
Rajaratnam and Subramanya 共1967兲 derived the distinguishing
a gate will be free or submerged, and the hydraulic performance
condition between free flow and submerged flow, the maximum
in both free and submerged conditions must be well understood.
tailwater level that permits free flow, assuming a contraction co-
Submerged flow occurs when the hydraulic jump below the
efficient of 0.61. Swamee 共1992兲 established the distinguishing
sluice gate is drowned by the tailwater. Since formation of the
condition by plotting various values of tailwater over the gate
hydraulic jump is related to the water depth at the vena contracta,
opening obtained by Henry 共1950兲 on a double logarithmic paper,
the occurrence of submerged flow is affected by the contraction
assuming a contraction coefficient of 0.60. In the present study, an
coefficient.
equation for the distinguishing condition was established through
1
theoretical formulation including the contraction coefficient as a
Associate Engineer, Hydraulic Planning and Research Institute, parameter and verified with experimental data.
W.C.A., M.O.E.A., 1340 Jung-Jeng Rd., Wu-Feng Hsian, Taichung,
Taiwan, R.O.C.
2
Associate Professor, Dept. of Civil Engineering, Kao Yuan Institute
of Technology, 1821 Chung-Shan Rd., Lu-Chu Hsian, Kaohsiung, Theoretical Analysis
Taiwan, R.O.C.
3 Flow contraction commonly occurs below a sluice gate. The de-
Professor, Dept. of Hydraulic and Ocean Engineering, National
Cheng Kung Univ., 1 Ta-Hsueh Rd., Tainan, Taiwan, R.O.C. gree of contraction may be represented by the contraction coeffi-
Note. Discussion open until January 1, 2003. Separate discussions cient, defined as the ratio of the water depth at the vena contracta
must be submitted for individual papers. To extend the closing date by y 2 to the gate opening b 共as shown in Fig. 1兲
one month, a written request must be filed with the ASCE Managing
Editor. The manuscript for this technical note was submitted for review y2
and possible publication on March 24, 2000; approved on August 29, C c⫽ (1)
b
2001 . This technical note is part of the Journal of Irrigation and Drain-
age Engineering, Vol. 128, No. 4, August 1, 2002. ©ASCE, ISSN 0733- Under a free flow condition, a hydraulic jump will occur
9437/2002/4-249–252/$8.00⫹$.50 per page. downstream from the sluice gate in a flatbed channel. The maxi-

JOURNAL OF IRRIGATION AND DRAINAGE ENGINEERING / JULY/AUGUST 2002 / 249

 Fig. 1. Sketch of free flow

mum downstream conjugate depth of the jump y 3 may be calcu- Fig. 3. Sketch of layout for experiments
lated by taking the water depth at vena contracta y 2 as the up-

冋 冑 冉 冊 冉 冊册
stream conjugate depth. A submerged flow will occur when the 1/2
2
tailwater depth is greater than the maximum downstream conju- 1 1
␰⫺ ␰ 2⫺ ⫺1 1⫺
gate depth. For a rectangular flatbed channel, the maximum ␩2 ␭2
downstream conjugate depth for free flows (y 3 ) max can be ex- C d ⫽C c (6)
1
pressed as follows: ⫺␩
␩
共 y 3 兲 max⫽ 2 C c b 关共 1⫹8F2␯ 兲 1/2⫺1 兴
1
(2) where ␰⫽(1/␩⫺1) 2 ⫹2(␭⫺1); ␭⫽y 1 /y 3 ; and y 3 ⫽tail water
where F2␯ ⫽q 2 / 关 g(C c b) 3 兴 ; q⫽discharge per unit width; and g depth.
⫽gravity acceleration. The above analysis shows that contraction coefficient C c af-
The discharge through a sluice gate may be expressed as Eq. fects not only the discharges for both free flow and submerged
共3兲 involving the discharge coefficient 共Henry 1950; Tsai 1990; flow, but also the distinguishing condition. The characteristics
Swamee 1992兲 were verified with the experiment conducted in the present study.

q⫽C d b 冑2gy 1 (3)

where y 1 ⫽upstream depth and C d ⫽discharge coefficient of the Experiment
sluice gate.
The relationship between the discharge coefficient and the The present experiment was conducted in the hydraulic laboratory
contraction coefficient for free flow may be expressed as follows at National Cheng-Kung Univ. to determine the contraction coef-
共Henderson 1966兲: ficient and the distinguishing condition for sluice gates. The
sluice gate was installed in a horizontal channel 9.2 m long and
Cc 0.4 m wide. A schematic view of the experimental setup is given
C d⫽ (4) in Fig. 3. The upstream and downstream depths were measured at
冑1⫹␩
the centerline of the channel with a point gauge having an accu-
where ␩⫽C c b/y 1 . racy of ⫾0.1 mm. Two different gate types were used. One was a
Substituting C d in Eq. 共4兲 first into Eq. 共3兲 and then combining modified slide gate with a quarter-circle steel plate installed at the
with Eq. 共2兲 yields lower end of the gate as a lip, as shown in Fig. 4. Another was a

冉冑 冊
typical sharp-edged gate. The experiment with the modified slide
共 y 3 兲 max 1 16
⫽ 1⫹ ⫺1 (5) gate consisted of ten runs for determining the contraction coeffi-
C cb 2 ␩ 共 1⫹␩ 兲 cient in a free flow condition and 32 runs for determining the
For known gate opening b, contraction coefficient C c , and distinguishing condition, while the experiment with the sharp-
upstream water depth y 1 , the maximum allowable downstream edged gate consisted of seven runs for determining the contrac-
depth for free flow can be determined from Eq. 共5兲. Therefore, tion coefficient in a free flow condition and 13 runs for determin-
Eq. 共5兲 represents the distinguishing condition between free flow ing the distinguishing condition. Gate opening ranged from 1.0 to
and submerged flow. 5.0 cm for the distinguishing condition runs and was set at either
Under submerged flow conditions, the discharge coefficient 2.5 or 3.5 cm for the contraction coefficient runs. For both distin-
can be obtained by simultaneously solving the energy equation guishing condition runs and contraction coefficient runs, the up-
between Sections 1 and 2 and the momentum equation between stream heads and discharges ranged from 1.0 to 5.0 cm and 0.005
Sections 2 and 3 共Henderson 1966兲, eliminating y 共submerged to 0.025 m3/s, respectively. The depth at the vena contracta y 2 in
water depth兲 shown in Fig. 2 and incorporating C c and C d as a free flow condition was taken as the minimum water depth
defined in Eqs. 共1兲 and 共3兲 based on the water surface profile in the supercritical flow reach,
measured with the same point gauge. To determine the submer-
gence threshold 共distinguishing condition兲, tailwater was gradu-
ally raised until more than 3% of change in upstream water depth
共i.e., ⌬y 1 /y 1 兲 was first encountered. Several runs were repeated
twice to reduce the uncertainties of measurements.

Experimental Results and Discussions

The contraction coefficients and the distinguishing conditions

Fig. 2. Sketch of submerged flow
from the present experiment were compared with the data from

250 / JOURNAL OF IRRIGATION AND DRAINAGE ENGINEERING / JULY/AUGUST 2002


Fig. 4. Sketch of gate lip for modified slide gate
the investigations by Rajaratnam and Subramanya 共1967兲 and
Swamee 共1992兲 in Figs. 5 and 6, respectively. In Fig. 5, E 1 is the
specific energy at the gate upstream section.
The contraction coefficient C C from the present experiment
ranges from 0.65 to 0.75 for the modified slide gate and from 0.59
to 0.61 for the sharp-edged gate, as shown in Fig. 5. It can be seen
from Fig. 5 that the contraction coefficient gradually decreases
with decreasing b/E 1 , exhibiting a tendency similar to that re-
ported by Benjamin 共1955兲 under the same gate opening. Since
the modified slide gate was installed with a quarter-circle steel
plate as a gate lip, the flow pattern at the gate would be similar to
that of a tainter gate or a radial gate. As indicated by Henderson
共1966兲, the contraction coefficient for a tainter gate may vary
from 0.61 to 1.00, depending on the angle ␪ of the gate lip with
the horizontal. The experiments at Tepako Canal and Arapun
Spillway by Speerli and Hager 共1999兲 showed that the coefficient
Fig. 5. Graph of contraction coefficient under different gate openings
JOURNAL OF IRRIGATION AND DRAINAGE ENGINEERING / JULY/AUGUST 2002 / 251
Fig. 6. Comparison between theoretical and experimental
distinguishing condition
ranged from 0.648 to 0.724 for the radial gate. These results are
consistent with the results from the present experiment for the
modified slide gate. For the sharp-edged gate, the contraction co-
efficients from the present experiment range from 0.59 to 0.61.
They are in good agreement with the reported range of 0.58 –0.63
by Rajaratnam and Subramanya 共1967兲 and the suggested value
of 0.60 by Henry 共1950兲 or 0.61 by Henderson 共1966兲 and Ra-
jaratnam and Subramanya 共1967兲. The present experimental re-
sults also show that the contraction coefficients for the modified
slide gate are larger than those for the sharp-edged gate, clearly
demonstrating the effect of gate type on the contraction coeffi-
cient.
The distinguishing conditions from the present experiment are
compared with the theoretical equation 关Eq. 共5兲兴 in Fig. 6. Due to
potential errors in reading the point gauge and gate opening, the
data are seen to scatter slightly in Fig. 6. Based on the scattering
range, the associated uncertainty is estimated to be less than 5%
of the final results. It can be seen from Fig. 6 that the distinguish-
ing condition is influenced by the contraction coefficient, with
stronger influence for larger y 1 /b. The theoretical curve for dis-
tinguishing the condition with C c ⫽0.60 is in good agreement
with the data reported by Rajaratnam and Subramanya 共1967兲 and
Swamee 共1992兲, validating the formulation of this theoretical
equation. Furthermore, for a given upstream depth and gate open-
ing, the maximum allowable downstream tailwater depth under
the free flow condition increases with contraction coefficient. This
implies that a sluice gate with a large contraction coefficient, such
as a tainter gate or a radial gate, is more suitable for flow control
under the free flow condition.
The effect of the contraction coefficient on the distinguishing
condition for the sluice gate is shown in Fig. 7, using Eq. 共5兲 with
selected values of contraction coefficient. According to Hender-
son 共1966兲, the contraction coefficient approaches 1.0 for a tainter
gate 共radial gate兲 as the gate lip angle ␪ approaches 0. It can be
seen from Fig. 7 that, for y 1 /b ranging from 2 to 16, (y 3 ) max /b
increases 17–26% when the contraction coefficient increases
from 0.60 to 1.00. This demonstrates that with a larger contrac-
tion coefficient 共i.e., less contraction兲, the tailwater depth can be
allowed to fluctuate in a larger range while remaining in the free
flow condition, thus improving the reliability of flow control with
sluice gates and reducing the risk of upstream overtopping. This
result may seem counterintuitive to those familiar with the use of

Fig. 7. Comparison of theory distinguishing condition for
C c ⫽0.60– 1.00
Eq. 共2兲 for computing conjugate depths in a hydraulic jump. For
that case, an increase in the initial depth causes a decrease in the
downstream conjugate depth 共sequent depth兲, for a given dis-
charge. For the sluice gate, upstream depth and gate opening are
given, and the discharge varies with the contraction coefficient
关Eqs. 共3兲 and 共4兲兴. An increase in C C causes an increase in dis-
charge and, correspondingly, an increase in (y 3 ) max .
Finally, it should be mentioned that gates with a higher value
of contraction coefficient will be less susceptible to submergence
only in the case of comparing two gates operating at the same
upstream head and gate opening. However, in a situation where
the gate opening is adjusted to obtain the same unit discharge
共since that is often the objective兲 for two different gates with the
same upstream conditions, (y 3 ) max will remain constant for a
given unit discharge regardless of C C . That is, the maximum
allowable tailwater levels that permit free flow are identical for a
given head-discharge combination.
Conclusions
The contraction coefficient is an important parameter associated
with an open channel flow involving sluice gates. In the present
study, a theoretical equation 关Eq. 共5兲兴 for the distinguishing con-
dition separating free and submerged flow was derived for the
contraction coefficient, gate opening, and the upstream depth. A
series of experiments was conducted to investigate the effect of
the contraction coefficient on the distinguishing condition for a
modified slide gate and a sharp-edged gate. The experimental
results show that the contraction coefficient varies with gate type
and affects the distinguishing condition as predicted by Eq. 共5兲.
For a given gate type, the effect of the contraction coefficient on
the distinguishing condition increases with the upstream depth.
For a given upstream depth, a sluice gate with a large contraction
coefficient, such as a tainter gate 共radial gate兲, will deliver a
greater discharge and tolerate a greater downstream depth while
252 / JOURNAL OF IRRIGATION AND DRAINAGE ENGINEERING / JULY/AUGUST 2002
remaining in the free flow condition. Since the theoretical equa-
tion for the distinguishing condition 关Eq. 共5兲兴 is expressed in
terms of the contraction coefficient, it can be applied to all gate
types, provided an appropriate contraction coefficient is known.
Acknowledgment
This research was supported by the National Science Council of
Taiwan under Grant No. 89-2625-Z-006-005. The writers are hon-
ored with gratitude.
Notations
The following symbols are used in this paper:
b ⫽ opening of gate 共L兲;
C c ⫽ contraction coefficient;
C d ⫽ discharge coefficient;
E 1 ⫽ upstream specific energy 共L兲;
Fv ⫽ upstream Froude number;
g ⫽ gravity acceleration 共LT-2兲;
q ⫽ discharge per unit width 共L3/LT兲;
y ⫽ submerged water depth 共L兲;
y 1 ⫽ upstream water depth of gate 共L兲;
y 3 ⫽ tailwater depth 共L兲;
(y 3 ) max ⫽ maximum tailwater depth for free flow 共L兲;
␩ ⫽ dimensionless parameter⫽C C b/y 1 ;
␪ ⫽ angle of gate lip with horizontal;
␭ ⫽ dimensionless parameter⫽y 1 /y 3 ; and
␰ ⫽ dimensionless parameter; and (1/␩⫺1) 2
⫹2(␭⫺1).
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