Abstract
The stepped spillway is a hydraulic structure that uses steps to decrease the energy in the stilling basin, which can reduce the cost of maintenance and repair of the hydraulic structure that results from scouring issues. The study faced challenges such as unstable flow, complex turbulence, and difficulties in accurately measuring energy dissipation on stepped spillways with different baffle block layouts. Despite these challenges, new baffle distributions were developed that improved energy dissipation, reduced downstream scour, and enhanced overall hydraulic performance. The current study was based on laboratory test that aims to increase percentage of energy dissipation for uniform and non-uniform stepped spillways by using different baffle energy distributions. The methodology of the study was conducted by using uniform and non-uniform stepped spillways with 45o spillway angle with 5 and 10 steps to produce 16 cases of flowing. The results show that the hydraulic jump length was significantly reduced for a uniform five-stepped spillway after using baffles compared with other conditions. The study confirmed that burners that contain (baffled block) are more efficient in dissipating power than ordinary burners, as the models that contain one baffled block 5 step had the highest percentage of energy dissipation at the distance (B/2.5). The developed relationships can predict (∆E) with high accuracy. (R2) 0.9857, (RMSE) 0.09, (MSE) 0.0083, and (MAE) 0.08.