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Water channel controlled at its head by a gate From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A sluice (/slus/ SLOOS) is a water channel containing a sluice gate, a type of lock to manage the water flow and water level. It can also be an open channel which processes material, such as a river sluice used in gold prospecting or fossicking. A mill race, leet, flume, penstock or lade is a sluice channeling water toward a water mill. The terms sluice, sluice gate, knife gate, and slide gate are used interchangeably in the water and wastewater control industry.
"Sluice gate" refers to a movable gate allowing water to flow under it. When a sluice is lowered, water may spill over the top, in which case the gate operates as a weir. Usually, a mechanism drives the sluice up or down. This may be a simple, hand-operated, chain pulled/lowered, worm drive or rack-and-pinion drive, or it may be electrically or hydraulically powered. A flap sluice, however, operates automatically, without external intervention or inputs.[citation needed]
Sluice gates are one of the most common hydraulic structures [2] used to control or measure the flow in open channels.[3] Vertical rising sluice gates are the most common in open channels and can operate under two flow regimes: free flow and submerged flow. The most important depths in designing of sluice gates are:
In the mountains of the United States, sluices transported logs from steep hillsides to downslope sawmill ponds or yarding areas. Nineteenth-century logging was traditionally a winter activity for men who spent summers working on farms. Where there were freezing nights, water might be applied to logging sluices every night so a fresh coating of slippery ice would reduce friction of logs placed in the sluice the following morning.[4]
Sluice boxes are often used in the recovery of black sands, gold, and other minerals from placer deposits during placer mining operations. They may be small-scale, as used in prospecting, or much larger, as in commercial operations, where the material is sometimes screened using a trommel, screening plant or sieve. Traditional sluices have transverse riffles over a carpet or rubber matting, which trap the heavy minerals, gemstones, and other valuable minerals. Since the early 2000s more miners and prospectors are relying on more modern and effective matting systems.[citation needed] The result is a concentrate which requires additional processing.
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In the Somerset Levels, sluice gates are known as clyse[5] or clyce.[6][7]
Most of the inhabitants of Guyana refer to sluices as kokers.[citation needed]
The Sinhala people in Sri Lanka, who had an ancient civilization based on harvested rain water, refer to sluices as Horovuwa.[8]
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