Design of the Submerged Outlet Structure for Reducing Foam at a Power Plant using a Numerical Model Simulating Air Entrainment

Anti-foaming agents and foam fences have been used to remove the foam at the outfall of power plants, but there are some problems as consumption of maintenance costs and insufficiency of effect. Therefore, development of the methods how to remove the foam by stable coastal structure has been required. In this study, numerical simulation of air entrainment was carried out to design the submerged outlet structure for reducing foam using curtain walls. The air entrainment rate and the discharge of entrained air change according to the shape of weir and curtain wall. Hence, it is necessary to design the optimum section through comparison of each case. The optimum section which has the maximum rate of foam reduction was determined by the simulation results. In addition, it was found that the flow velocity at the submerged outlet is to be smaller than 1 m/s and the submerged depth of curtain wall is to be taller than height of the submerged outlet section.