Interactions of a Human Body with Parallel Angled Vanes Used to Improve Public Safety at a Low-Head Dam
type: CreativeWork
description: The flow below low-head dams and weirs presents a significant public safety risk due to the formation of a submerged hydraulic jump that creates a dangerous recirculating flow or "roller”. Numerous safety incidents have been documented over the last several decades that have led to the development of guidelines for public safety at low-head dams, which encourage non-structural and structural modifications to the structures to improve safety. As a result, various structural modifications have been explored to mitigate these dangers. Recent studies at the University of Saskatchewan showed that angled parallel submerged vanes might improve public safety by eliminating the submerged hydraulic jump and creating a flow that carries a body entering that flow laterally toward the channel bank, thus improving the chance of rescue. In this work, the potential interactions between persons carried by the flow and the vanes were assessed, and mitigative measures were developed for interactions that appear to have a more significant chance of creating injury. This study followed an experimental approach, utilizing the same apparatus as Wilson (2022), to investigate potential body-vane interactions with a more realistic, scaled test body in terms of body density, segment size, mass distribution, lung volume, and body fat based on available biomechanics data. The experiments were conducted in a controlled flume environment, with scaled models of a human body designed based on the biomechanics literature. The test bodies were 3D-printed with segment-specific densities and flexible joints to simulate realistic movements. The experimental program was divided into four series. The first series repeated prior experiments by Wilson (2022) to observe body-vane interactions using a more realistic test body. In the second series, potential interaction types were categorized under various flow conditions. The third series tested the repeatability of these interactions through repeated trials…
abstract: The flow below low-head dams and weirs presents a significant public safety risk due to the formation of a submerged hydraulic jump that creates a dangerous recirculating flow or "roller”. Numerous safety incidents have been documented over the last several decades that have led to the development of guidelines for public safety at low-head dams, which encourage non-structural and structural modifications to the structures to improve safety. As a result, various structural modifications have been explored to mitigate these dangers. Recent studies at the University of Saskatchewan showed that angled parallel submerged vanes might improve public safety by eliminating the submerged hydraulic jump and creating a flow that carries a body entering that flow laterally toward the channel bank, thus improving the chance of rescue. In this work, the potential interactions between persons carried by the flow and the vanes were assessed, and mitigative measures were developed for interactions that appear to have a more significant chance of creating injury. This study followed an experimental approach, utilizing the same apparatus as Wilson (2022), to investigate potential body-vane interactions with a more realistic, scaled test body in terms of body density, segment size, mass distribution, lung volume, and body fat based on available biomechanics data. The experiments were conducted in a controlled flume environment, with scaled models of a human body designed based on the biomechanics literature. The test bodies were 3D-printed with segment-specific densities and flexible joints to simulate realistic movements. The experimental program was divided into four series. The first series repeated prior experiments by Wilson (2022) to observe body-vane interactions using a more realistic test body. In the second series, potential interaction types were categorized under various flow conditions. The third series tested the repeatability of these interactions through repeated trials…
author: Mahdizadeh, Seyed Ali
language: en
keywords: public safety at dams, public safety at low-head dams, dam safety, dam safety in Canada, submerged hydraulic jump, drowning machine, retrofit to low-head dams, scaled human model, vanes below weir, submerged parallel vanes, modifications to mitigate the dangers of submerged hydraulic jump, use of scaled human model in hydraulic engineering, use of scaled human model in hydraulic modelling, repeatability testing in hydraulic modelling
date published: 2025-03-05
date modified: 2026-07-24T04:27:18Z
provider: University of Saskatchewan
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: University of Saskatchewan

PropertyValue
property ID: Handle
value: https://hdl.handle.net/10388/16660