Experiments on turbulence and settling down of fine sediments induced by pumped storage operations in a cuboidal reservoir

Long-term sedimentation of pumped storage reservoirs due to the alternation of turbine and pumping modes is an issue regarding sustainability and reliability of such schemes. Systematic experiments on a cuboidal basin are conducted to study how flow fields, turbulence and settling down of fine sediments are affected by discharge, duration of pumped storage sequences, sediment concentration and intake/outlet location. The experimental setup allows simulating inflowing jet into a reservoir, as well as water extraction from the storage volume. Prior to physical scaled modelling, several scenarios with and without sediments were simulated in a numerical model. The model performance was optimized analysing simulation parameters and several turbulence models. Simulation results were compared to jet theory and observations in preliminary tests on the hydraulic model, which allowed adapting and optimizing both numerical and experimental setup.