OF OPEN CHANNEL
By
Ke-Zhong HUANG, Associatie Professor
Departement of River Mechanics and River Engineering
Wuhan Institute of Hydraulic and Electric Engineering
Wuhan, CHINA
ABSTRACT
In this paper the reliability on hydraulic design of a trapeziodal
open channel designed to convey a specified discharge from sluice gates
is assessed by three different methods, which are the first-order secondmoment analysis, the inequality analysis, and the Monte Carlo method.
The principles of the methods are applicable to the reliability analysis for
any hydraulic system and for other technical fields.
INTRODUCTION
Analyses of uncertainties and risk in hydraulics have been
developed during the past thirteen years. Although hydraulicians have
made significant contributions in the reliability of storm sewer design,
pipe design, and of the theory of safety facrtors (e.g., Yen and Ang,
1971 ; Tang and Yen, 1972; Yen and Tang, 1976; yen,1977,1979),
reliability of the hydraulic design of open channels has not been studied.
It should be mentioned that uncertainties are unavoidable in an open
channel to convey a specified discharge released from sluice gates or
weirs.
Engineers encounter many factor which factors whith possess some
degree of uncertainties affecting the determination of the channel
capacity. Uncertainties occur in the hydraulic factors in the discharge
formulas of the open channels and sluice gates or weirs. These factors
include the roughness coefficient of the open channel, the discharge
coefficient of teh sluice gates or weirs, etc. In the traditional deterministic
design approaches, such uncertainties are not accounted for.
Consequently, the safety factor is evaluated in a deterministic manner
despite its inherent probabilistic nature. In this paper three different
methodes are presented to assess the probability of safety of the capacity
of a trapezoidal open channel to convey a specified design discharge
released from a set of sluice gates.
(1)
....
and
Pf
= 1
= P ( R < L)
= P (S
...
in which
S =
R
L
......................
(3)
(R ) + (L )
in which R and L are the mean values of the resistance and loading,
respectively; R and L are their standard deviations : R and L are
the coeficiens of variation; and ( x) denotes the cumulative standard
normal distribution evaluated at x . Likewise, if R and L are
statistically independent variates of lognormal distribution, we have
P =
2
R
2
L
ln
1 + 2L
1 + 2R
R
L
ln
P =
[ (1
+ 2R )
2
R
Eq
+ 2L ) ]
.......................................... (4)
.4 is
L
R
(1
2
L
..............................................................
(5)
Q = Cd N W e
2g H
L ...........................................
(6)
.
in which H is the head above the crest at the upstream side of the gates;
C d is the coefficient of discharge; is a submerge coefficient; W is the
width of each gate; e is the height of the sluice opening; and g is
gravitational acceleration. The parameters H , C d , , W , and e are
assumed to be indepandent random variables. By using the first-order
approximation of Taylors series expansion (Benjamin and Cornell, 1970)
for E q . 6, we obtain the mean of the loading, L , as
Q = Cd X N W
2g H = L
.......................................... (7)
..
and
1 2
= 2L
4 H
Q2 = C2 + 2 + W2 + e2 +
.....................
(8)
[(b
(b
+ m h) h] 3
+ 2h
1+ m
2
2 3
i
(9)
= R ...................................
n
[(b
+ m h) h] 3
b + 2h
1 + m
2
3
i
n
= R
...........................
(10)
and
Q2 = 2n
1
+
i2 +
4
h
3
5 ( b + 2 m h)
( b + m h) h
4
b
1 + m
+ 2h
1 + m
2h
m h
3
4 m
5
b
+ m h
1 + m
+ 2 h
1 + m
2m
b
3
5
b + 2 h
1 + m
b2 ..................................................................
(11)
for x c
(12)
for c x u ..............
elsewhere
1
( + c + u )
3
................................................................(13)
.
2x
1
2
1
6x
(c + c u + u) ........................................... (14)
..
Thus, we can obtain the probability of safety from
together with E qs . 7, 8, 10, 11, 13, and 14.
E qs
. 3 or 4
or larger (Ang, 1970; yen and Ang 1971), the acceptable probability of
failure would be in the order of 10-4 or smaller for major hydraulic
engineering designs in China. In orther to avoid the sensitivity to the
types of distribution, we derived the greatest lower bound of the
probability of safety by using the Chebyshev inequality.
The Chebyshev inequality can be written as
P s
d <
d )2 ]
E [ (s
in which S is again the safety factor; and d is a real number for every
> 0 . Let d = k S > 1 , and = k S
1 , then
P ( s
< )
P (1 < S < 2 k S
E [ (s
d ) 2 ] = S2 + S (1
1) P ( S 1) = P
and
k)2
It follows that
P 1
where
y =
S2 + S
k)2
(1
1) 2
(k S
d y
dk
= 0,
then
S2
k =
S (S
1)
+ 1
and
y =
S2
S2 + ( S
1) 2
S2
S2 + ( S
1) 2
.................................(15)
...
where
and
S =
R
L
S =
R
L
...................................................................................(16)
..
2
S
R
L
2
R
+ 2L )
................................................ (17)
f ( ) d
...................................................................(18)
....
in which
f ( )
(c
(1
(u
) (u
c)
....................
A sample value of
)
(u
for
)
for
c
u
>
c
u
(19)
R
L
Cd
Factor
w
H
Cd
Sluice Gates
Design Value
Range
4,50 m
4,46 m - 4,55 m
4,20 m
4,16 m - 4,2 m
6,50 m
6,40 m - 6,60 m
0,484
0,471 - 0,497
1
7
P =
P ( S 1)
M
M0
Factor
b
m
i
h
.......................................................
..
It may be seen that this method prossess some merits in
comparison with the first-order second-moment analysis as follows:
(a) The assumption of the types of distribution of R and L as
well as the first-order approximation can be avoided.
(b) The theoritically, the types of distribution of R and L must
be determined by deriving the distributions function from E qs . 6 and 9 in
terms of the types of distribution of C d , ......, and n, respectively, but
these integral operations are very difficult, if possible. Therefore, there is
a contradiction of the distributional assumption in the first-order secondmoment analysis. On the contrary, the Monte Carlo method may evade
this fault in theory.
The deficiency of the Monte Carlo method is that it must assume
the distributions for C d , ......, and n. Becase we do not have enough data
to establish these distributions, the deficiency is unavoidable when the
acceptable profitability of failure is in the other of 10-4 or smaller for
major engineering designs.
EXAMPLE APPLICATION
A trapezoidal open channel is designed to convey a specified
discharge released from a set of seven identical sluice gates. The data of
the sluice gates and the trapezoidal open channel are given in Table 1.
m3
L = Q = 732
s
Eq
m3
R = Q = 848
s
1.17
= 0.991
. 4.