I am designing a pipe siphon to effect the drawdown of a reservoir under emergency conditions.  To give a sense of scale I've done a preliminary sizing at 0.5m dia.  

I've struggled to find any good guidance on the design of this type of installation (there seems to be plently out there on self priming and air regulated siphons, but less on the basic 'pipe over an embankment' type).

Much of the guidance I have managed to find suggests that the downstream end needs to be submerged.  This is going to be difficult in the situation I am designing for (discharge half way down the existing spillway)/Ball Valves so my question is - why?  If this is for priming, can I get away from needing it by having a valve at the downstream end which is closed during priming?

I'd also be grateful for any suggestions on a source of good design guidence on this type of siphon.

Do not have much design info - just practical ideas.  The "downside" definitely needs to be lower than the "upside" - the more the better. Never heard that it needed to be submerged - although that may slow the output a bit and not allow an air bubble burp to enter the pipe and possibley break the siphon.  Just put it in a pail at the exhaust end.

When we were kids - we used to scavenge every hose we could find in the neighborhood in order to siphon our neighbors pool - so we could clean it, paint it and THEN SWIM!!  We would fill the hose with one kid on each end holding it closed.  Then we would yell to each other and get the siphon going. It would run for days - worked great.

A stilling basin is probably necessary on the discharge side to ameliorate other problems such as turbulence and erosion.

The valve that you selected may be used instead of a submerged discharge. Note that the vale may collect debris and plug with debris. The valve may be a freezing issue as well.

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