Small Tilting Flume

The laboratory’s small tilting flume is 19.5-m long and 0.9-m wide. The first 3.7-m of the flume has walls that are 1.2-m high with the remainder of the walls with a 0.6-m height. The flume is supported by a center pin and two mechanically connected screw jacks that allow the flume slope to be varied from 0 to 10%.

Water is supplied to the flume from the laboratory head tank and water levels are controlled via a tainter style tail gate.

The small tilting flume has been used extensively for numerous hydraulic model studies1, 2 and geomorphologic studies3, 4, 5 including flow through vegitation6, 7, stream re-naturalization using artificial pool-and-riffle sytems8 and an examination of the hydrodynamics associated with the use of bendway weirs to control erosion at meander bends9.

View of small tilting flume

View of small tilting flume

 

 

1 Freeman, Jeffrey W. and Marcelo H. García. 1996 May. “Hydraulic Model Study for the Drown Proofing of Yorkville Dam, Illinois.” University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Civil Engineering Studies, Hydraulic Engineering Series No. 50 (UILU-ENG-96-2005). 95 p

2 Schuster, Josephine M. and Marcelo H. García. 2000 May. “Hydraulic Model Study for the Optimization of the Spillway at Batavia Dam, Fox River, Illinois.” University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Civil Engineering Studies, Hydraulic Engineering Series No. 66. 73 p.

3 Rodriguez, JF and Garcia, MH. 2008 Laboratory measurements of 3-D flow patterns and turbulence in straight open channel with rough bed. Journal of Hydraulic Research, 46(4), 454-465.

4 Bittner, Laura D., Yarko Niño, and Marcelo García. 1995 December. “River Bed Response to Channel Width Variation Theory and Experiments.” University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Civil Engineering Studies, Hydraulic Engineering Series No. 49. 123 p.

5 Lopez, Fabian and Marcelo H. García. 1996 October. “Turbulence Structure in Cobble-Bed Open-Channel Flow.” University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Civil Engineering Studies, Hydraulic Engineering Series No. 52 (UILU-ENG-96-2012). 137 p.

6 Dunn, Chad, Fabian Lopez, and Marcelo H. García. 1996 October. “Mean Flow and Turbulence in a Laboratory Channel with Simulated Vegetation.” University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Civil Engineering Studies, Hydraulic Engineering Series No. 51 (UILU-ENG-96-2009). 148 p.

7 Lopez, F. and Garcia, MH. 2001 Mean flow and turbulence structure of openchannel flow through non-emergent vegetation. Journal of Hydraulic Engineering – ASCE, 127(5), 392-402.

8 Rodriguez, J.F. 2003 Mean flow and turbulence characteristics of pool-riffle structures in low-gradient streams. Ph.D. thesis, University of Illinois.

9 Abad, JD, Rhoads, BL, Guneralp, I and Garcia, MH. 2008 Flow structure at different stages in a meander-bend with bendway weirs. Journal of Hydraulic Engineering – ASCE, 134(8), 1052-1063.