Design of a bilateral-symmetric multi-slot fishway and its comparison with vertical slot fishway in terms of hydraulic properties

Aiming at improving the hydraulic properties and enhancing the fish passage efficiency, this study proposes a novel bilateral-symmetric multi-slot fishway (BMSF) by combining the structural features of a double-sided vertical-slot fishway, multi-slot fishway and T-shape fishway. Eight BMSF cases are further designed by adjusting the slot width and the distance between the short baffle and the front end of the central wall, in order to achieve the relatively best hydrodynamic characteristics. The flow fields of two vertical-slot fishways and eight BMSF fishways are obtained by numerically solving the Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes equation, the volume-of-fluid equation and the k-ω-SST turbulence model. Numerical results manifest that the recommended BMSF-8 provides the smallest values in terms of the maximum time-averaged velocity magnitude (1.42 m s⁻¹), the maximum time-averaged turbulent kinetic energy (0.132 m² s⁻²), the maximum time-averaged Reynolds shear stress component (44 Pa), the spatial-mean time-averaged velocity magnitude (0.58 m s⁻¹), and the spatial-mean time-averaged turbulent kinetic energy (0.042 m² s⁻²) in the middle pool at Q = 1000 L/s. Even for the depth-mean time-averaged velocity magnitude at the slot and the volume percentages of some critical physical quantities, BMSF-8 is also superior to the other cases. To sum up, BMSF-8 leads to the relatively lowest flow velocity and turbulence, being more suitable for the passage of the whole fish community (especially for small-sized fishes with weaker swimming ability). In addition, the generalizability of the aforementioned superiority of BMSF-8 is displayed by providing the numerical results of four operating conditions (i.e., Q = 600, 800, 1000 and 1200 L/s).