Keynote Speaker

Mosul Dam is located in Nineva, Iraq on the Tigris River, and is owned by the Government of Iraq and operated and maintained by the Ministry of Water Resources (MoWR). The dam is a 110 m high earth and rockfill embankment with primary purposes of water supply, hydropower, and flood control. The Mosul Dam Bottom Outlets were designed to divert the river during construction, to manage the reservoir when the lake level is sufficiently low that hydropower cannot be generated, or to lower the reservoir during emergencies. The bottom outlet consists of a submerged intake tower which bifurcates the flow into two identical conduits, each with 12 m diameter reinforced concrete culvert sections, an access and emergency regulation tower, followed by 10 m diameter steel lined tunnel sections, and regulated by 7 m high by 5 m wide top seal tainter gates. Each bottom outlet has a maximum discharge capacity of 1,225 m3/s with 55 m of reservoir head. The energy dissipation structure for the bottom outlets consists of a flip bucket located downstream of the tainter gates and a partially concrete lined plunge pool. This case study presents a brief synopsis of the Mosul Dam bottom outlet, a brief history of the project, the issues regarding operation of the bottom outlet, erosion issues in the plunge pool, and the hydraulic issues related to the design, construction and commissioning of the new dentated flip bucket to reduce the potential for erosion in the plunge pool.