Based on the policy of consolidating the research capacities of the Ministry of Energy in the water sector, the Water Research Institute officially initiated its specialized activities in 1380 (2001) and since then has been working to achieve the set goals by using all available capacities. The Research Department of Hydraulic Engineering and Aquatic Environments is one of the two specialized research departments of the Water Research Institute and has special capacities in meeting the research, study and consulting needs of the country’s water industry, based upon its experience, specialized human resources, as well as unique equipment and laboratory facilities, especially in the fields of hydraulic structure design, river engineering studies, coastal engineering studies and coastal structures, environmental studies and research, comprehensive erosion and sediment studies, mathematical and laboratory modeling of hydraulic phenomena, field measurements and field research as well as quantitative environmental monitoring.
Physical modeling has always been a useful and effective tool to service design consultants and experts in hydraulic engineering, in order to remove ambiguities and solve design problems. In this regard, the Hydraulic Structures Group of the Water Research Institute is one of the leaders in the study of physical models in Iran, which has numerous experiences in cooperation with international hydraulic research institutes. This group, which is the pioneer technical group in the Hydraulic and Aquatic Environments Research Institute of the Water Research Institute of the Ministry of Energy, works for more than 45 years. The present group is proud to have completed most of the major dam construction projects and hydraulic structures in the country and in this regard has helped to localize this in the country and the region. The completed projects are over 250 research and applied projects, each of which has played a significant role in the strategy of hydraulic science in the country. These projects further investigate and optimize the hydraulic performance of dam-relevant structures such as spillways, chutes, Stilling basins, bottom outlet structures, diversion tunnels, gates, valves and intakes. The main technology used in these studies is physical modeling. The scale selection range for the models is between 1:10 and 1: 100. Design optimization is done by analyzing the results of scale model experiments and in close cooperation between consulting engineers and the group. Due to the fundamental and extensive advances in numerical modeling in recent years, utilizing this technology is currently taken into account in combination with physical scale models and under the title of integrated model technology in this section.
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- Engineering studies and design refinement of hydromechanical structures related to hydropower plants.
- Laboratory research on the nature of fluid phenomena related to the performance of aqueous structures.
- Utilizing computational hydraulics and non-structural methods to optimize and design structures.
- River and Sea chair Group with about 30 years of experience in the field of river management studies, riverbed and boundaries, flood warning systems studies and dozens of basic and applied research projects, as well as design, construction and implementation of physical river models, has the following activities on its agenda