Iffezheim reservoir

Sediment modelling in the Iffezheim reservoir

The Iffezheim reservoir is located in the river Rhine at the border between Germany and France, between Karlsruhe and Strasbourg. The reservoir has been modelled with the SSIIM 2 model in a cooperation between the Bundesanstalt für Gewässerkunde in Germany, University of Karlsruhe and NTNU.

Download ParaView animation of the sediment flow (210 MB)

The animations shows the computed concentrations seen from under the reservoir in the left figure. The right figure shows the bed elevation changes. The animations show the values over a 3 month period in 2007, from April to July.

The dam at Iffezheim divides the downstream part of the reservoir in three channels. The middle channel leads the water to the hydropower plant. The right channel seen in the downstream direction, is a lock channel for boats. In the left figure, this is on the left side. There is no discharge through this channel in the simulations. The left channel, seen in the downstream direction, is the spillway channel. This has normally low velocities, but during large river discharges, the channel has high velocities and sediment concentrations. The sediments deposit in the spillway channel, as observed in both prototype and the figures from the computation.

Back to home page

This page is made by

Nils Reidar B. Olsen

Articles from the current project:

Olsen, N. R. B. and Hillebrand, G. (2018) Long-time 3D CFD modelling of sedimentation with dredging in a hydropower reservoir, Journal of Soils and Sediments. doi:10.1007/s11368-018-1989-0. AAM

Hillebrand, G., Klassen, I. and Olsen, N. R. B. (2017), 3D CFD modelling of velocities and sediment transport in the Iffezheim hydropower reservoir, Hydrology Research, Vol. 48, Issue 1, pp. 147-159. doi:10.2166/nh.2016.197.

Klassen, I., Gonzalez, W., Seidel, F., Nestmann, F., Hillebrand, G., Hoffmann, T. and Olsen, N. R. B. (2020) 3D numerical analysis of suspended sediment concentrations in a meandering river upstream of a hydropower reservoir, 6th IAHR Europe conference, Warsaw, Poland.

Last updated: 7. March 2020