Keynote Speaker of the 19th congress of IAHR-APD

Keynote Speaker

Weilin XU, Sichuan University, CHINA

Title of the Speech

STUDY ON AERATION FOR AVOIDING CAVITATION DAMAGE IN
HYDRAULIC ENGINEERING

Personal Profile

Prof. Weilin Xu, the Director of The State Key Laboratory of Hydraulics and Mountain River
Engineering, finished his PhD Study in 1991 at former Chengdu University of Science and
Technology which has joined with Sichuan University Since 1994. Prof Xu mainly
concentrated on the study of Hydraulics, especially on the micro-mechanism of high speed
flow and the new safety techniques on the high speed flow from the high dam spillways. He
has made some original and initiative studies in cavitation and aeration including self-aeration
of the high speed flows for avoiding cavitation damages to the hydraulic structures. In the
aspect of new techniques for high speed spillway flow, he invented no-collision discharging
technique from both side orifices from high arch-dam sluices and submerged horizontal jet-
flows from gravity dams, and etc. In addition, his has studied quantitatively the increasing
mechanism of dam-breaking flooding flows from cascade hydraulic projects. He has also
proposed new simulation methods on the turbulent high speed flow from the spillway of high
dams. His theoretical achievements have published in Journal of Hydraulic Engineering,
Journal of Hydraulic Research and etc. Results of his study have successfully adopted by
many worldwide known high dam projects in China.

Abstract: Cavitation damage is common in the high dam hydropower engineering. The
alleviating measures for cavitation damage mainly include shape optimization, surface
smoothness control, usingcavitation resistant material, and aeration. Among them, aeration is
proved by practice as an efficient mitigation cavitationmeasure. The State Key Laboratory of
Hydraulics and Mountain River Engineering(Sichuan University,China)conducted the
massivetheoretical and technical research about aeration mitigation cavitation. In this paper,
the mechanism of aeration mitigation cavitationwas further revealed by adopting high speed
video technology,and some new technologies of aeration mitigation cavitation for different
type of spillway tunnelwere presented. Besides, this paper also studied the aeration mitigation
cavitationissue in stepped spillway, and analyzed the critical condition of cavitation damage in
orifice tunnel. Parts of results mentioned above have been applied into someconstructed and
constructing large water conservancy and hydropower project.