Experimental and numerical study of water intakes: Case study of the Foz Tua hydropower plant

Abstract

Studies on the hydraulics of water intakes have been traditionally performed in physical models. In order to validate the use of computational fluid dynamics models to characterize the flow in water intakes in terms of velocity and pressure, a comparative experimentalnumerical study was performed, centered in the case study of the Foz Tua pumped-storage hydropower plant. Overall, was observed proximity between numerical and experimental data, predicting that numerical models can be used to simulate flow in water intakes.