TITLE:
CFD Analysis of Flow in a Grated Inlet
AUTHORS:
T. V. Hromadka II, P. Rao, Mohsen Battoei
KEYWORDS:
Drainage, Grates, Overland Flow, OpenFOAM®
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Civil Engineering,
Vol.10 No.1,
March
10,
2020
ABSTRACT: Effectively
managing floods in urban regions requires effectively designed and
well-maintained runoff collection system. The absence of such a system and
intense rainfall event will have the potential to disrupt the urban life and
cause significant economic loss to properties. Grated inlets, which are a key
component in urban drainage network, are used to capture the runoff. In this
work, a three dimensional CFD model was developed based on open-source CFD tool,
OpenFOAM®, to model flow over a grated inlet. An incompressible,
transient, multiphase flow, Volume of Fluid (VOF) simulation was performed to
predict the water flow rate through the grate inlet. The predicted flow rates
are compared with the HEC-22 monograph values. The close agreement between the
results shows the potential of using CFD modeling approach to test the
reliability of existing drainage inlets for different flow scenarios.