Stepped spillways have existed as escape works for a very long time. It is found that water can trap a lot of air when passing through steps and then increasing oxygen content in water body, so stepped spillways can be used as a measure of re-aeration and to improve water quality of water body. However, there is no reliable theoretical method on quantitative calculation of re-aeration ability for the stepped spillways. By introducing an air-water two-phase flow model, this paper used k-ε turbulence model to calculate the characteristic variables of free-surface aeration on stepped spillway. The calculated results fit with the experimental results well. It supports that the numerical modeling method is reasonable and offers firm foundation on calculating re-aeration ability of stepped spillways. The simulation approach can provide a possible optimization tool for designing stepped spillways of more efficient aeration capability.