Mailsi Syphon

OLD BARRELS

NEW BARREL

JANUARY 28, 2019

Prepared by:
Hafiz Muhammad Asfahan
Aarish Maqsood
Muhammad Aleem
Nabeel Sheraz
Muhammad Ashraf
Submitted to:

Dr. Umar Faraid

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 Preface

We, the student of Agricultural Engineering participated in the Tour to Head Syphon
which was held at Mailsi on 28th January 2019. This tour was organized by the Head
of the Department (HOD) of Agricultural Engineering, Dr. Zahid Mehmood Khan
and Associate Professor Dr. Umar Fareed & our C.R Kashif Bashier.
The tour had the following objectives:
1. To enable us to get a deeper understanding of the Irrigation Engineering subject
through visit of Hydraulic structure.
2. To relate the class room learning to real world situations
3. Working of Hydraulic structures
4. To broaden students’ horizons and students’ global cultural awareness through
interaction with experienced engineers.

I reached the university at 8 o’ clock (am). I am very excited about the tour. The
University bus came in front of the department at 9:30 (am). All the students including
me rushed towards the bus. The Head of the Department, Dr. Zahid Mehmood Khan
had joined us in the bus and gave us the fruitful advice that, you must have to take of
yourself and as well as your friends, don’t listen the songs in the way to Mailsi and
make your observation sharp and notice each and everything about the hydraulic
structure & asked the questions with your Professor and the instructor.

We start our journey with the name of ALLAH. We departure from the university at
10 o’ clock. "The wheels on the bus go round and round". As the bus is trying to make
his way up through the Alps, we are getting more exited. We reached there at about 12
o’ clock. The Hafiz Ghulam Nabi meet there. They guided us and gave us each and
every information about the syphon which are enlist in this report.

Instructor’s:
Dr. Umar Fareed
Hafiz Ghulam Nabi

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SYPHON:
A siphon is a closed conduit, a part of which rises above the hydraulic grade line. It utilizes
atmospheric pressure to effect or increase the flow of water through it. (inverted). A conduit or culvert
with a U of V shaped grade line to permit it to pass under an intersecting roadway, stream or other
obstruction.
MAILSI SYPHON:
The Mailsi Siphon is not a true siphon, but what is termed an inverted siphon, which means inverted
tunnels taking the canal water under the river. The tunnels dive steeply below the river on one side,
to rise steeply above the level of the river again on the other.

History:
The Mailsi Siphon was constructed to enable the waters of a canal to cross the flood plain of a large
river. The River Sutlej, at Mailsi in West Pakistan, contains very little water for eight or nine months
of the year, as practically all the water is diverted by a dam and by barrages into the canal systems in
India and more northern parts of Pakistan. During three or four months of the year the river may
swell from a width of a few yards to seven miles, to give a discharge of up to 4,29,000 cusecs.
Its complete name is SMB link.Mailsi Siphon was built to control the water flow in the Sidhnai Link Canal
and Sutlej river under this same Indus Water Treaty.The canal is designed for the discharge of 4000 cusecs,
while the syphon is designed for 5200 cusecs discharge. In 2008, the canal was raised and run it on the
discharge of 5200 cusecs. In 2018-19 the extra.The head Mailsi is designed for the discharge of 4,00,000
cusecs. On full supply level there is 10% allowance. It means that the head Mailsi passes out the discharge of
5,00,000 cusecs in case of emergency.In Pakistan, all the rivers has bridge sections on the right side. This is
for, if the water comes in large amount, then extra water will be drained by using the bridges. The water is
passing over the bridges and enter in the river again. Its like a bypass route of water. The main purpose of this
bridge is to secure the hydraulic structure. If the bridges are not present, then the water will take the hydraulic
structure with itself. While in case of the Mailsi the bridge is not design, this is because on the right side of
the Mailsi headwork there is a SMB link canal, band, second defense line, 3rd defense line, same case on right
side. In both cases the water will not enter the river. Ferodhpur (3,00,000) Sulemanki (3,00,000) and Islam

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(3,00,000) are the headworks on the river setluj.In the last year the water comes in the seluj river is 30,000
cusecs. There are three dams on the seluj river in india. So, the very little amount of water is come during the
flood days. 40% glaciers are covered by India on the indus river, Kashmir is a main supply of water for
Pakistan so it is cut off by india. If the Pakistan has controlled on Kashmir, then there is no any stress of water
shortage for Pakistan. The crop grown in the Mailsi is cotton. Presently the water comes in the SMB link canal
is sewage water of Lahore and the polluted chemicals of Kasur.At the distance of 22 Km there is a area of
kheirpur kami wali. (connection not understand).The SMB link canal has the velocity of 3ft/s while under the
barrel the velocity of water is about 7ft/s.During summer season when the water comes, it contain silt which
will deposit in the barrel while in winter the water will eroded the silt. Currently, there is 1 to 1.5 ft of silt is
in the old barrels. Counter weighted gate are installed in the newly constructed barrel this is because it is easy
to lift up the gate . while old barrel has the motor mechanism to lift the gate. So, it is very difficult to lift it up.

The project required:

(a) the diversion and training of the River Sutlej, including the construction of about 25 miles of
bunds and guide banks.
a) A large-scale dewatering scheme, to enable work to be carried out below the water table.
b) The densification of the ground to support a heavy structure.
c) The construction of four reinforced concrete tunnels which support above them a barrage with
piers, and prestressed concrete bridges.
d) The construction of about three miles of lined link canal across the low-lying flood plain of
the river.
e) The construction of 24 steel gates across the barrage to control accretion and scour in the river
channel, upstream and downstream

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 f) The construction of gates to control the flow of canal water through the siphon. This Paper
deals with the main aspects of the design and construction of the project.

Possible structures:
Four different schemes for transporting the canal water across the river were considered. These were:
a) An aqueduct.
b) A barrage containing a permanent upstream pond into which the canal water discharged on
one side and was taken off again on the other side.
c) A simple inverted siphon without piers, gates, or bridges, across the river channel.
d) An inverted siphon with a form of barrage on top, including gates to control the flow of the
river, and bridges for operating the gates and for traffic. Four different schemes for
transporting the canal water across the river were considered.

Reasons for choice of the structure:

 The aqueduct proved impractical as the levels required for the water in the link canal was not
sufficiently high to enable the structure to have a safe margin of clearance above the maximum
flood waters. Owing to the low bearing capacity of the river bed, and the ease with which the
material is eroded, the foundations for the aqueduct would have had to be continuous and
probably as deep and as massive as those required for a barrage or siphon.
 An exact site was selected for a barrage, and a considerable amount of design work was
undertaken. The barrage, however, had two major disadvantages.
 Firstly, marginal bunds designed to contain a permanent pond would be required. These
would be expensive to construct, and expensive to maintain.
 Secondly for eight or nine months of the year there is practically no flow in the river at
Mailsi, the flow in the canal would probably be more than the flow in the river. In the
hot dry season, the losses due to evaporation and seepage of the canal water, when
spread over the wide river bed, would have been high. A barrage might also have created
serious problems of channel sedimentation and water logging by virtue of its proposed
pond level being substantially higher than the recorded high flood level at the proposed
site.
 A simple inverted siphon was considered. The River Sutlej when in flood carries with it a large
quantity of silt, the main streams tend to change their courses rapidly, and in doing so scour
new deep channels and deposit new silt beds and islands. It was thought necessary to prevent
deep scour or accretion from occurring near the siphon, and to attempt to ensure an even river
bed for at least a few thousand feet upstream or downstream of the siphon. It was also thought
desirable to have a double carriageway road bridge across the river.
 The inverted siphon with piers, river gates, and bridges was therefore selected. Twenty-four
gates operate between the piers and are intended to restrict the flow of the river where scour is
occurring or to concentrate the flow where accretion is occurring, thus maintaining an even
river bed near to the siphon. Marginal bunds were also necessary for containing the river water
during the flood season, but these are smaller than those required for the barrage scheme and
can easily be maintained as they are rarely in use.

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Design Consideration:

OLD SYPHON Head Syphon

No. of Barrels 4 Max. Discharge 5,00,000 ft3/s

Discharge in the 5200 ft3/s No. of Gates 24

Barrels
Width of the gate 60 ft
Area of each barrel 13.6 ft × 13.6 ft
Piers 23
Velocity of water in 7.22 ft/s
the barrels Width of the piers 7 ft

Manning’s (n) 0.014

Pictorial views:

Head Syphon Bridge and Gates

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 Old Syphon

Silting of Old Syphon

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New constructed Syphon

Slope of New Syphon

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Internal view of Syphon