Otimização do método área-velocidade para estimação de vazão fluvial

Abstract

This work demonstrates how the traditional velocity-area method for estimating river discharge can be adjusted via a simple numerical procedure, based on the considerations of classical fluid dynamics and the Navier Stokes equations, to yield multiple savings over the current international standards. The velocity-area method is the standard procedure for measuring the discharge of rivers. This procedure is standardized at the international level by the technical norm ISO EN 748:2007 of the International Standards Organization, and it requires the measurement of speed at various verticals of the river cross-section, at various depths for each vertical. In general, a relatively large number of measurements is needed to determine the flow. This work demonstrates that this procedure can be optimized through a simple numerical procedure, based on considerations of classical fluid dynamics and the Navier Stokes. More precisely, observing functional form of the velocity profile versus depth, applying polynomial regression for each vertical, and then linear or non-linear interpolation between the verticals, one arrives at a continuous interpolation for speed for the entire area of the cross-section, which turns out extremely robust to the removal of measurement points. This procedure is applied to data obtained in the river Exu, Pernambuco state, in April 2008. In particular, it is demonstrated that the number of measurements can be significantly reduced without substantial loss of accuracy of the estimate.