Description of Some Seal Vibration Problems at Hydraulic Gates on German Waterways

Flow induced vibrations are a common phenomenon in hydraulic engineering. They affect the operation of gates and weirs and can lead to fatigue or damage of the construction. In this article, different types of vibration incidents on hydraulic gates are distinguished. By measuring the vibration frequency, it is possible to distinguish between the vibration of rubber profiles in the shape of a musical note (J-seals), vibrations involving the complete weir body and vibrations of spring supported seal systems. J-seals tend to vibrate in various arrangements. A laboratory study shows the vibration mode and evaluates a critical opening width of gates with a J-seal as bottom seal. For future work, numerical fluid-structure-interaction (FSI) solvers may be a tool to identify flow-induced-vibrations in the design process of hydraulic gates. First results of this method are shown