EMERGENCY-GUARD GATE FOR A HIGH-HEAD OUTLET G. A. Chepaikin and G. A. Ryabtsev UDC 627.

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Emergency-guard gates of outlets have the functional purpose defined by their name and are installed in outlets in front of the service gates. In an emergency situation these gates close the outlet, for which purpose the wickets have a sealing contour on their upstream or downstream (with the flow) side. During normal (long-time) operation these gates are raised, their sealing contour is opened, andthey aresurrounded on all sides by water under pressure. Therefore, the housings (chambers, shafts)in which the emergency-guard gates are installed require closing their top with hermetic covers calculated to absorb the internal water pressure in the housings. A shortcoming of the indicated gates is the presence of the hermetic covers of their housings (chambers, shafts), which are under the internal pressure of water and constantly create the risk of flooding the overlying service rooms in the event of troubles with the covers or their seals. The hermetic covers themselves are heavy, cumbersome metal structures which have glands for passage of the hoisting rods or gate drive rods and are fastened to the housings by a large number of bolts. When conducting inspections, routine maintenance, and overhauls the removal of the hermetic cover of the housing is a long and labor-intensive process requiring the enlistment of a large number of maintenance personnel. Furthermore, at present, in connection with the design of high-head hydroelectri c stations withlarge outlets, for example, the Rogun hydrostation, the installation of hermetic covers has become impracticable owing to the enormous loads on them and on the fastening bolts, the number of which cannot be increased infinitely. To remove the pressure from the hermetic cover of the housing at the normal open (raised) position of the emergency-guard gate, to provide the possibility of inspecting and repairing its wicket in 8ituj and to eliminate the harmful effect of the grooves on the flow in the outlet and to protect the grooves from cavitation erosion, the Moscow Special Design Department for Steel Hydraulic Structures (Mosgidrostal') proposed and realized at the Inguri arch dam a vertical-lift emergency-guard gate consisting of a wicket with a ring follower having inside dimensions equal to the inside dimensions of the outlet. The ring follower on the upstream anddownstream sidesis equippedwith itsownclosedsealing contourspreventing ina raised position ofthe emergency-guardgatethepenetration ofwater intothe gatehousing underthe hermetic cover [i]. Such vertical-lift emergency-guard ring-follower gate is called for, in particular, in a deep outlet with a service drop gate at the exit directing the jet upward at an angle to the horizon (providing maximum deflection from the dam) and having a number of other hydraulic advantages over the usualservice lift gate [1-3]. A shortcoming of the described emergency-guard gate is that during its hoisting or lowering, from the time of opening some (for example, wicket) sealing contoursto the time of closing other (for example, ring) sealing contours its housing is hriefly but nonetheless under the complete pressure of the water in the outlet and, consequently, requires the construction of a strong hermetic cover. We proposed an improved variant of the vertical-lift emergency-guard ring-follower gate having on the whole and in detail the same design and, consequently, the same (known and therefore not given here) dimensions, mass, virtues, and shortcomings as of the Inguri prototype but making it possible to dispense with the hermetic cover or making it lightweight, just for covering the opening in the floor of the service room. This possibility is achieved by the fact that additional outside common sealing contours are installed on the gate, encompassing the existing individual closed sealing contours on the wicket and ring. The additional contours have the same design as the main sealing contours. Thus Mosgidrostal's recently develope d improved design of the Inguri seal with a polyethylene sealing element of the diaphrasm type, which is calculated for a head of 250 m and which showed in hydraulic and cavitation tests of a full-scale experimental model the possiTranslated from GidrotekhnicheskoeStroitel'stvo, No. 5, pp, 40-42, May, 1985. 0018-8220/85/1905-0255509.50 9 1985 Plenum Publishing Corporation 255

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li F- b) d) Fig. i. Scheme of the gate device: a) Gate in lower (closed) position; b) gate in intermediate postion; c) gate in upper (open) position; d) view of gate from upper pool.

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Fig. 2. Rectangular slide gate with a ring follower: a) View of gate from upper pool; b) view of gate from lower pool; c) cross section through vertical axis: i) Span of gate wicket; 2) gate suspension eye; 3) upstream encompassing sealing contour; 4) upstream main sealing contour of gate wicket; 5) crossflow hole; 6) upstream maln sealing contour of ring follower; 7) ring follower; 8) side support; 9) support slide of ring follower; I0) downstream main sealing contour of ring follower; Ii) downstream encompassing sealing contour; 12) support slide of gate wicket; 13-14) manhole. billty of operating up to a head of 400 m, has an installation width of the case of 200 ram, i.e., requires for the two-row arrangement (main and additional) of the contours an additional 200 mm per side (and for construction of combined cases, 150 mm per side), which can be cut out without changing the overall dimensions (and mass) of the gate. The scheme of the proposed gate device in three positions of the gate is shown in Fig. I. The device consists of the outlet 1 and housing 2 with high breast walls. The emergencyguard gate 3 consists of wicket 4 and ring follower 5.

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On the u p s t r e a m ~ n d d o w n s t r e a m s i d e s o f t h e g a t e , on the w i c k e t and on the r i n g , are the main s e a l i n g c o n t o u r s , w i c k e t 6 and r i n g 7. The main s e a l i n g c o n t o u r s have d i m e n s i o n s c o r responding to the size of the outlet orifice. Additional common closed sealing contours8 are installed on the outside of the main sealing contours 6 and 7~ encompassing them. Between the main 6 and 7 and additional 8 sealing contours on the upstream and downstream sides of the gate there are Intercontour parts 9 interconnected by crossflowholes I0. Drain pipes ii and 12 (without valves) branch from the top and bottom of the gate housing.
The device works in the following way.
In the lower gate position the outlet 1 is completely closed by the gate wicket 4. In this case the ring follower 5 is in the lower part of the housing 2. The wicket seal 6 is closed. The ring seals 7 are closed. The common seals 8 (always) are closed. The intercontour parts 9 with crossflow holes 10 are connected with the lower drain pipe ii draining the water that seeped through the wicket seal into the lower pool. Drain pipe 12 is spare. In the intermediate position (during movement) of the gate the outlet 1 is covered parti~lly by the gate wicket 4 and partially by the ring follower 5. The wicket 6 and ring 7 seals are open. The common seals 8 are always closed. The intercontour parts 9 are disconnected fromthe drain pipes and are under the pressure of the water. The water seeping from the intercontour parts 9 through seals 8 into housing 2 is drained by lower drain pipe ii into the lower pool. Drain pipe 12 is spare. In the upper position of the gate the outlet 1 is completely open. In this case wicket 4 is in the upper part of the housing 2. The ring follower 5 by its own inside surface closes the grooves and apertures of the housing 2, providing constancy of the size and shape of the flow. The wicket seal 6 is closed. The ring seals 7 are closed. The common seals 8 are always closed. The intercontour parts 9 with the crossflow holes 10 are connected with the upper drain pipe 12 draining the water that seeped through the ring seals into the lower pool. Drain pipe ii is spare. An emergency-guard gate with a ring follower can be used not just in circular outlets. Figure 2 shows the design of a gate for a rectangular outlet. The technical and economic effect of the proposed variant of the emergency-guard gate consists in that it is possible to construct large outlets for heads of 250-350 m without hermetic covers. Hermetic coversinthe presence of such heads, as design developments show, are impracticable inview of the large loads. The cost of one hermetic cover is 15,000 rubles and the mass is 20 tons. With the usual 4-6 hermetic covers for deep outlets of high-head hydro projects their elimination will save 60,000-90,000 rubles and free 80-120 tons of metal. Repair works on the gates are facilitated; there will be no long and labor-intensive operations on removing the hermetic covers. LITERATURE CITED I. 2. 3. I.F. Kochanov and S. V. Farmakovskii, "Mechanical equipment of deep outlets of the Inguri arch dam," Gidrotekh. Stroit., No. 12 (1981). G . A . Chepaikin and V. V. Maksimov, "Gate chamber with a drop gate for deep outlets with a head of 300 m and discharge of 1000 m'/sec," Gidrotekh. Stroit., No. 12 (1977). G . A . Chepaikin, "Deep high-head outlet with a drop gate," in: Transactions of the ~oint Conferences on Hydraulic Engineering. Hydraulics of High-Head Outlets [in Russian], Energiya, Leningra d (1975).

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