First approaches to an experimental method for the study of flows in highway retention basins

Abstract

Reservoirs collect natural motorway wastes and pollutants from accidental spills as well. The article is reporting an experimental study about a miscible pollutant transfer according to the reservoir characteristics : shape, vegetation, inlet jet, etc. The collected data will enable to calibrate a numerical model used as a model to build a gauging chart, in order to make the time transfer longer than the current time limit to come to the place where accident occurs. We first describe the experimental method : water level, flow, concentration and speed measurements. The second part gives some results. According to the reservoir, we deduced that a plate with holes in front of the inlet jet or a good distribution of the vegetation could reduce speed flow. The first numerical tests give a time transfer comparable to the measured time.