Abstract:

With the widespread long-term mid-layer intrusion density flow in the tributary bays of Three Gorges Reservoir as a research background, an indoor physical model was built. Three main factors inflow rate, initial water level, and temperature difference were chosen to design various conditions to simulate and investigate the motion characteristics of adverse slope density current in the mid-layer. The variations of hydraulic elements of the density current such as head moving velocity, interface height and head thickness influenced by inflow rate, initial water level, and temperature difference were analyzed. With Channing’s theoretical formulas, the head velocities of mid-layer density current in different conditions were calculated and compared with the measured values. It was found that the difference between the two was not large, and the relative error was less than 5%.

Key words: temperature difference , mid-layer , adverse slope density flow , test