The challenge of water management
From flood prevention to resource protection, water management is one of today’s biggest ecological challenges. Tilting flumes have become essential tools for engineers studying hydraulics and sedimentology. Armfield’s latest products offer unmatched versatility, thanks to an automated lifting system supplied by our partner Drive Lines Technologies Ltd.
Humans have altered river courses for millennia—managing water resources, preventing floods, and enabling navigation. Today, river engineering is a critical field, helping civil engineers understand flow dynamics, sediment transport, and subaqueous debris flow.
The role of tilting flumes in research
Many studies benefit from flumes (fixed-length, open-channel waterways) with tilting capabilities for positive or negative slopes. Based in Ringwood near Southampton, Armfield has supplied hydraulic laboratories worldwide with flumes for over 50 years. Their research flumes come in various lengths, operating modes, and feature full computer control with data logging.
These flumes typically have high-visibility glass-sided flow channels with a rectangular prismatic section and a stainless-steel bed. The key to a tilting flume’s accuracy and repeatability is maintaining the integrity of the working section. This requires an extremely rigid design to prevent deflection under load or tilt, making the tilting system’s design crucial for stability.
Achieving accuracy with Screw Jacks
To achieve maximum repeatable accuracy and stability, Armfield recommends Screw Jacks driven via bevel gearboxes. Long flumes require multiple Screw Jacks carefully linked to prevent frame distortion. In cases of extreme slopes, pivot mechanisms at each station ensure the Screw Jacks remain vertically aligned.
For its new S60 modular tilting flume—offering lengths up to 30 m—Armfield partnered with our partner Drive Lines. Specializing in mechanical drive systems, Drive Lines sources components from top global manufacturers, delivering reliable, versatile, and cost-effective solutions.
Screw Jack protected with folding bellows
Challenging requirements for the 15 m flume
The 15 m version of the new flume presented the most demanding requirements, requiring three Screw Jack stations interconnected by a geared drive. The system needed to achieve a positive slope of up to 1.43° and a negative slope of up to 0.29°, all while maintaining bed stability of better than 1 mm at a 400 mm water depth.
The 15 m S60 flume has a pivot at one end, meaning that achieving the maximum slope requires raising the opposite end by 450 mm. The Screw Jack system provided by Drive Lines consists of three jacking stations: the first at 5 m from the pivot, the second at 10 m, and the third at 15 m. With the flume’s working section measuring 800 mm high by 600 mm wide, filling it to its maximum allowable depth places a 4-ton compression load on each jacking station.
Ensuring even lift
For the Drive Lines engineers, the main challenge was carefully selecting the bevel gearbox ratios and motor speed to ensure even lifting across all jacking stations. At both the first and second stations, Drive Lines installed two MJ3-GL Screw Jacks, while two MJ4-GL Screw Jacks were used at the third station. Manufactured by GROB Antriebstechnik, the MJ series Cubic Screw Jacks are ideal for controlled lifting, lowering, and slewing. They can be used individually, in pairs, or as part of a multi-jacking system.
A 1.1 kW motor connected to a Graessner PowerGear P-110-FL three-way gearbox is positioned between the second and third jacking stations. Power is delivered to each of the three jacking stations via R+W EZ2/60 line shafts. Each shaft then drives a Graessner PowerGear P-110-L-123 gearbox at each jacking station, with the drive from the gearboxes to the twin jacks provided by additional R+W EZ2/60 line shafts.
Robust, reliable, and maintenance-free, Graessner PowerGear bevel gearboxes offer angular torque transfer and torque distribution in single or multiple shaft configurations. They excel in applications where torque forces are high, and space is limited.
Automated control and limit switches
The automated operator interface for the jacking system allows users to input any desired incline target value, which the system will automatically meet. Electronic limit switches prevent movement beyond the maximum and minimum travel limits.
Completely self-contained, the S60 tilting flume is an essential tool for hydraulics engineers, offering extensive demonstration capabilities in all aspects of open-channel flow. Equipped with the Drive Lines jacking system for full electrical control of tilting, numerous S60 flumes have been installed in educational and research facilities worldwide, providing engineers with the tools needed to address some of the most pressing ecological challenges of our time.