Discharge rate measurements in a canal using radiotracer methods

H J Pant; Sunil Goswami; Jayashree Biswal; J S Samantray; V K Sharma

doi:10.1016/j.apradiso.2016.02.019

Discharge rate measurements in a canal using radiotracer methods

Appl Radiat Isot. 2016 Jun:112:89-97. doi: 10.1016/j.apradiso.2016.02.019. Epub 2016 Mar 2.

Authors

H J Pant¹, Sunil Goswami², Jayashree Biswal², J S Samantray², V K Sharma²

Affiliations

¹ Isotope Production and Applications Division, Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Mumbai 400085, India. Electronic address: hjpant@barc.gov.in.
² Isotope Production and Applications Division, Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Mumbai 400085, India.

PMID: 27016711
DOI: 10.1016/j.apradiso.2016.02.019

Abstract

Discharge rates of water were measured in a canal using radiotracer methods with an objective to validate the efficacy of Concrete Volute Pumps (CVPs) installed at various pumping stations along the canal. Pulse velocity and dilution methods were applied to measure the discharge rates using Iodine-131 as a radiotracer. The discharge rate measured in one of the sections of the canal using the pulse velocity method was found to be 22.5m(3)/s, whereas the discharge rates measured using the dilution method in four different sections of the canal varied from 20.27 to 20.62m(3)/s with single CVP in operation. The standard error in discharge rate measurements using dilution method ranged from ±1.1 to ±1.8%. The experimentally measured values of the discharge rate were in good agreement with the design value of the discharge rate (20m(3)/s) thus validating the performance of the CVPs used in the canal.

Keywords: Canal; Concrete volute pump; Dilution method; Discharge rate; Iodine-131; Mixing length; Pulse velocity method; Radiotracer.