Energy loss and contraction coefficients-based vertical sluice gate's discharge coefficient under submerged flow using symbolic regression.

Accurate calculation of discharge is a critical task in terms of environmental and operational regulations. In the current study, a new approach for determining vertical sluice gates' flow discharge with a minor bias is proposed. Energy-momentum equations are used to characterize the physical expression of the phenomena intended for generation of the coefficient of discharge. The coefficient of discharge is then expressed according to coefficients of energy loss and contraction. Following that, the coefficient of discharge, coefficient of contraction, and coefficient of energy loss are calculated using an optimization approach. Then, dimensional analysis is conducted and regression equations for quantifying the coefficient of energy loss is produced using symbolic regression method. The derived contraction coefficient and energy loss coefficient formulas are accordingly utilized to compute the coefficient of discharge in the vertical sluice gate and also to determine flow discharge. For computing discharge, five different scenarios are considered. The developed approaches' performance is examined against selected benchmarks from the literature. The results show that the symbolic regression method can compute discharge more accurate than its alternatives.