Design Philosophy for De icing of the Gates

The design of De-icing system of the gates of HEP is based on the US Army Corps
Engineering Manual i.e EM -1110-2-1612 (Chapter 20- Control of icing on Hydraulic
Structures).

Introduction:-

Exposed mechanically operated systems of the gates may be frozen-in winters and become
inoperable .The weight of ice on the structures that need to be moved may become excessive
so that the lift system overloaded .Ice Load can also cause structural damage .Therefore the
need of de icing of the gates arises.

Structural design for the Ice Load:-

As the ice load which is the additional load on structure of the gate it needs to be incorporated
for the structural analysis of the gate leaf so as to protect it from the structural damage. IS
-4622 clause-8.1 a gives various ice loading conditions for the structural analysis of the gate.

Heating of the Embedment’s and gate leaf:-

The other major concern in winters is that icing may jam the gate leaf and hoisting may
become in operable, to forgo this problem heating of embedment’s and gate leaf is required.
Heat has been used for the years at hydraulic structures to control the icing .Typical methods
includes steam lances, heat embedded in concrete walls , mineral insulated heaters installed
under steel side-seal rub plates. Though these have proven effective ,they all have demonstrated
limitations . Steam lances pose the same problems as pike poles and other manual methods in
that they are very labor intensive and slow ,and they frequently require the placement
personnel .The practice of embedding heat tracing in the concrete provides only short term
benefit , as the heaters burn out after relatively short service and can not easily be replaced. For
HEP we have proposed the system in which the heaters are easily replaceable for maintenance.

After deciding the system to be used , heater sizing i.e amount of heat required to melt the
ice has to be calculated. The heater sizing is different for the embedment’s and gate leaf. As per
engineering manual mentioned above the heat calculations are done and number of heaters are
calculated. Design has been done on the same principle in which the heat transfer takes place in
the fins (conduction, convection).