W.A. Breugem, B. Decrop, P. Rauwoens, K. Verelst and W. Van Hoydonck (IMDC)

Locks are key structures for the accessibility of ports and navigable waterways. The filling of the lock chamber has to be done with special precautions, taking into account the forces experienced by the moored vessels during the levelling process. In case of filling a lock with openings in the lock gate, one of the potential methods to minimize the hydrodynamic forces on the ships, is to insert breaking logs (i.e. energy dissipation bars) at the downstream side of the lock gate, aiming at an enhanced spreading and energy dissipation of the filling jets.
The present investigation studies the influence of breaking logs on the flow pattern in a lock chamber using OpenFOAM. Thereto, two different kinds of simulations were performed:
• Simulations  were performed of a configuration with a single opening in the lock gate with and without breaking logs using simpleFoam. The results were compared with data from physical model experiments of the same configuration.
• Simulations were performed  of the filling process of a complete lock chamber with six openings using interFoam. This was done for two different configurations of openings in the lock gate. Both configurations were simulated both with and without breaking logs.
In the presentation, the results of these simulations will be discussed.