How does sluice gates work

Others are even cylindrical in nature. The word sluice indicates a man-made channel or modified natural waterway that conducts water. This kind of gate regulates how and where that water is moved. This is especially useful for controlling flooding or water levels in farming and other industries. Many sluice gates are moved by means of a threaded rod system, which needs to be regularly cleaned and greased.

Often, when these gates are used in applications with a large amount of water pressure, such as dams, they are raised and lowered by hydraulic systems to control the sluice gate flow. Sometimes in smaller uses, such as in cranberry bogs, the gates are raised and lowered manually. At other times, an electrically-driven hoisting system is used. Historically, sluice gates proved useful in mills. A mill sluice was known as a millrace , and would often turn a waterwheel or turbine, which could be then used to power equipment needed in sawmills and gristmills.

The millrace was often regulated by sluice gates to decrease or increase the flow of water, depending on when it was needed. A sluice gate can be known by other names depending on geographic location. For example, in the coastal plains of Sommerset, England, the gates are known as clyce or clyse.

In Guyana, they are referred to as kokers. Flap gates are vertical, automated and rely on pressure sensors to open and close. Gates of this type without pressure sensors are called vertical rising sluice gates. Radial sluice gates consist of cylindrical sections placed horizontally across the water.

Each gate has a series of embedded rods which the gate operator controls to manipulate the cylinder and adjust the water flow. The fourth type of sluice gate is the needle gate, which operates on the same hydrodynamic principle as a needle dam. Each needle gate features an array of large, thick, freestanding needles braced vertically against a horizontal scaffold. The pressure of the water flowing through the gate holds the needles in place.

Miniature sluice gates called sluice boxes are staples of small mining operations. They act as filters that collect tiny stones and pieces of valuable ore.