CIVL3140 2020/1

Practical: The broad-crested weir

1. AIM
The purpose of this practical is to investigate:
- the rapidly varying flow in the vicinity of a broad-crested weir.
- the flow transition between sub-critical and super-critical flows, and
- the basic concepts of hydraulic controls, specific energy and Bernoulli principle applied to open channel
flows.
A key feature of the broad-crested weir practical is the smooth and short transition from subcritical to
supercritical flow with small energy losses (Fig. 1), i.e. in contrast to a hydraulic jump.

Fig. 1 - Sketch of a broad-crested weir overflow

2. INTRODUCTION TO BROAD-CRESTED WEIRS

In hydrology, it is desirable to have long historic records of streamflows to predict the extremes: i.e. low-
flow (or drought) and high flow (floods). Because quantifying flow rates is difficult, but measuring water-
levels is easy, the strategy at a stream-gauging station is to measure water-levels continuously and calibrate a
stage-discharge curve to convert heights into flow rates. A randomly selected stream location is
unsatisfactory for gauging purposes because, for any given water height, the flow rate when a flood is rising
is greater than when it is receding. An alternative is the construction of a weir in the stream channel to force
critical depth conditions to occur. This results in a satisfactory monotonic relationship between flow rate and
flow depth at the weir (HENDERSON 1966).
In most practical situations, the approach flow velocity is small and the upstream flow conditions are sub-
critical. However, on the immediate downstream side (provided the outlet is not "drowned" by some further
downstream structure or hydraulic control phenomenon), the flow discharging from the weir crest will
generally be supercritical. In crossing the weir, therefore, such flow must pass through CRITICAL flow
conditions: i.e. the specific energy must reach a minimum. A weir is called "broad-crested" when the crest is
long enough for the streamlines to be parallel to the crest invert, the pressure distribution to be hydrostatic
and critical flow conditions to occur somewhere over the horizontal section of the crest (CHANSON 2004).
Besides investigating the position at which critical flow depth occurs (and if possible explaining why), it is
useful to study the changes in specific energy that take place as the flow passes over the weir (FELDER and
CHANSON 2012). If the energy loss is negligible in passing the sill crest, one should remember that the

1 ©Hubert CHANSON
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specific energy above the crest must be less than that upstream by the height of the step because specific
energy is referenced to the local channel bed elevation (see definition of the specific energy).

Basic Reading: CHANSON (2004), pp. 28-37 & 395-398; HENDERSON (1966), pp. 211-213.

3. APPARATUS
In the AEB Hydraulics laboratory of the University of Queensland, three 3.2 m long rectangular horizontal
channels are supplied with water from a constant head reservoir. The discharge is controlled by a valve
mounted just above the intake structure at the upstream end of the channel. Each 0.4 m wide channel is fitted
with horizontal side rails and water depths are measured using mobile pointer-gauges. About halfway along
the channels, a section of the floor is raised to form a weir platform, with a flat sill, about 42-cm long in the
flow direction and 65 mm above the channel invert. The weir's upstream vertical face is rounded where it
meets the horizontal sill, while the downstream face is fitted with a tapered downslope (ramp) that lowers the
flow back to the original channel floor level in a smooth concave-upward curve.
At the downstream end of the channel, the normally free-fall outlet is fitted with an adjustable radial gate,
which can be cranked downward into the outflow to force a hydraulic jump to form if it is desired to
investigate when the weir becomes "drowned".
Channel flow rates are measured by timing a specified "weight" of outflow in the channels 1 and 3. The
outflow falls into a separate tank mounted on a weighing platform with a balance arm to which counter-
weights can be added. Under steady-flow conditions, with the tank's lever-action outlet valve wide open, the
water level in the tank rises until its outlet discharges at the same rate as the tank inflow. If counter-weights
are THEN used to just exceed the effect of the tank contents, the balance arm falls to its "LOW" position. If
the tank outlet is then closed, a timer may be started as soon as the balance arm moves to "HIGH". By THEN
(quickly) adding a known EXTRA counter-weight to return the balance arm to "LOW", the timer may be
stopped as soon as the next "HIGH" move indicates that the specified EXTRA water has entered the tank.
In the channel 2, the water discharge is measured with a calibrated orifice meter. The calibration curve of the
orifice is plotted next to the channel intake section.

Comments
The water depths in the channel are measured using pointer-gauges with vernier scales. Each vernier scale
needs to be set to read zero when the pointer is at the current channel floor level, upstream of the crest. [One
pointer-gauge may be set for use over the horizontal sill.] Remind yourself how to interpret the particular
vernier scales.
Figure out what circumstances would cause (a) the channel, and (b) the outlet tank, to spill over the
laboratory floor.

4. PREREQUISITES
4.1 At least 1 week before the scheduled practical quiz, read the current document and the relevant
references (section 5).

4.2 Watch the video movie on the broad-crested weir experiment located at
{https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:734961}.

4.3 Express the relationship between the specific energy, the discharge, channel width and depth in a
horizontal rectangular channel.

4.4 For a horizontal channel of rectangular cross-section, develop the dimensionless expression of the
specific energy E/dc as a function of the dimensionless flow depth d/dc, where dc is the critical flow depth.
Note: the resulting non-dimensional relationship is universally useful for studying any transition in any
channel.

4.5 Assuming that the flow is critical above the broad-crest and in absence of downstream control, calculate
(a) the upstream flow depth, (b) the flow depth above the weir and (c) the downstream flow depth in the
laboratory channel (described in section 3, above) for the following discharge Q:

2 ©Hubert CHANSON
CIVL3140 2020/1
Your UQ Student ID number
Q
6 109
with Q in m3/s.

5. REFERENCES
CHANSON, H. (2004). "The Hydraulics of Open Channel Flow: An Introduction." Butterworth-Heinemann,
Oxford, UK, 2nd edition, 630 pages (ISBN 978 0 7506 5978 9).
Textbook pages 30-37 & 395-398.
FELDER, S, and CHANSON, H. (2012). "Free-surface Profiles, Velocity and Pressure Distributions on a
Broad-Crested Weir: a Physical study." Journal of Irrigation and Drainage Engineering, ASCE, Vol.
138, No. 12, pp. 1068–1074 (DOI: 10.1061/(ASCE)IR.1943-4774.0000515) (ISSN 0733-9437).
HENDERSON, F.M. (1966). "Open Channel Flow." MacMillan Company, New York, USA.

6. Additional bibliography
CHANSON, H. (1999). "The Hydraulics of Open Channel Flow: An Introduction." Edward Arnold, London,
UK, 512 pages (ISBN 0 340 74067 1).
CHANSON, H. (2006). "Minimum Specific Energy and Critical Flow Conditions in Open Channels."
Journal of Irrigation and Drainage Engineering, ASCE, Vol. 132, No. 5, pp. 498-502
(doi:10.1061/(ASCE)0733-9437(2006)132:5(498)) (ISSN 0733-9437). Closure: Journal of Irrigation and
Drainage Engineering, ASCE, Vol. 134, No. 6, pp. 883-887 (DOI: 10.1061/(ASCE)0733-
9437(2008)134:6(883)) (ISSN 0733-9437).
GONZALEZ, C.A., and CHANSON, H. (2005). "Experimental Measurements of Velocity and Pressure
Distribution on a Large Broad-Crested Weir." Flow Measurement and Instrumentation, Vol. 18 (DOI
10.1016/j.flowmeasinst.2007.05.005) (ISSN 0955-5986).
HENDERSON, F.M. (1966). "Open Channel Flow." MacMillan Company, New York, USA.
ISAACS, L.T. (1981). "Effects of Laminar Boundary Layer on a Model Broad-Crested Weir." Research
Report No. CE28, Dept. of Civil Eng., Univ. of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia, 20 pages.
MILLER, D.S. (1994). "Discharge Characteristics." IAHR Hydraulic Structures Design Manual No. 8,
Hydraulic Design Considerations, Balkema Publ., Rotterdam, The Netherlands, 249 pages.
MONTES, J.S. (1998). "Hydraulics of Open Channel Flow." ASCE Press, New-York, USA, 697 pages.
NOVAK, P., MOFFAT, A.I.B., NALLURI, C., and NARAYANAN, R. (2001). "Hydraulic Structures."
Spon Press, London, UK, 3rd edition, 666 pages.
TOOMBES, L., and CHANSON, H. (2011). "Numerical Limitations of Hydraulic Models." Proc. 34th IAHR
World Congress, Brisbane, Australia, 26 June-1 July, Engineers Australia Publication, Eric
VALENTINE, Colin APELT, James BALL, Hubert CHANSON, Ron COX, Rob ETTEMA, George
KUCZERA, Martin LAMBERT, Bruce MELVILLE and Jane SARGISON Editors, pp. 2322-2328 (ISBN
978-0-85825-868-6).
ZHANG, G., and CHANSON, H. (2016). "Hydraulics of the Developing Flow Region of Stepped Spillways.
I: Physical Modeling and Boundary Layer Development." Journal of Hydraulic Engineering, ASCE, Vol.
142, No. 7, 8 pages (DOI: 10.1061/(ASCE)HY.1943-7900.0001138) (ISSN 0733-9429).
The Minimum Energy Loss (MEL) weir design: an overflow earthfill embankment dam
{http://www.uq.edu.au/~e2hchans/mel_weir.html}

7. Copyright information
This practical is part of a collection of four laboratory practicals [1]. The collection and each work are an
University of Queensland publication. Each practical was allocated an unique identifier [2] at the University
of Queensland institutional open access repository UQeSpace {http://espace.library.uq.edu.au/}. Each work
is available to users through UQeSpace pursuant to a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial CC
BY 4.0 License (1).

1 {http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/}

3 ©Hubert CHANSON
CIVL3140 2020/1

[1] CHANSON, H. (2020). "Hydraulics of open channel flow: practical experiments at the University of
Queensland, Australia." Generic Document, The University of Queensland, School of Civil Engineering,
Brisbane, Australia (ISBN 978-1-74272-311-2).
{https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/collection/UQ:734960}

[2] EDLIN, S., LU, Z., and CHANSON, H. (2020). "The Broad-Crested Weir." Generic Document, The
University of Queensland, School of Civil Engineering, Brisbane, Australia (ISBN 978-1-74272-311-2).
{https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:734961}

4 ©Hubert CHANSON