Case Study: Kawa Engineering Ltd. achieves a flood-safe, dry powerhouse with ANSYS CFD

Simulation helps engineers position a powerhouse to avoid flooding

Kawa Engineering Ltd., a Vancouver-based hydropower engineering consultant, needed to site a powerhouse close to a waterfall while minimizing flood risk and costly protective works. To evaluate flood behavior and find a safe elevation, the team used ANSYS fluid dynamics tools, specifically ANSYS CFX, to simulate open-channel flow and hydraulic jumps at the proposed location.

Using ANSYS, Kawa imported laser-scanned riverbed data into ANSYS DesignModeler and ran transient Eulerian–Eulerian multiphase CFD simulations on a 32-core cluster, iterating across river conditions. The simulations showed a maximum hydraulic jump of 170 meters, so the powerhouse will be positioned at or above that elevation; this outcome from ANSYS is expected to keep the facility dry, lower construction and equipment-protection costs, and ensure reliable operation.