Abstract
The floods following the event of a dam collapse can have a significant impact on the downstream environment and ecology. Due to the limited number of real-case data for dam-break floods, laboratory experiments and numerical models are used to understand the complex flow behavior and to analyze the impact of the dam-break wave for different scenarios. In this study, a newly designed experimental campaign was conducted for the sequential dam-break problem in a rectangular channel with a steep slope, and the obtained results were compared against those of a particle-based numerical model. The laboratory tests permitted a better understanding of the physical process, highlighting five successive stages observed in the downstream reservoirs: dam-break wave propagation, overtopping, reflection wave, run-up, and oscillations. Experimental data were acquired using a virtual wave probe based on an image processing technique. A professional camera and a smartphone camera were used to obtain the footage of the experiment to examine the effect of the resolution and frame rate on image processing. The numerical results were obtained through the Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) method using free DualSPHysics software. The experimental and numerical results were in good agreement generally. Hence, the presented data can be used as a benchmark in future studies to validate the SPH and other Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) methods.
Highlights
A large volume of water is stored in the dam reservoirs
Shallow Water Equations (SWEs) models based on the assumptions of neglectable vertical accelerations and assuming a hydrostatic pressure distribution were widely used to simulate the dam-break flow [3,4,5,6]
While the image processing technique was used to obtain the experimental data, Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) method was used for the numerical solutions
Summary
A large volume of water is stored in the dam reservoirs. The flood caused by a dam-break is a great disaster and causes losses of lives and properties. It is important to hydraulically investigate the dam-break problem to determine the flooded areas downstream as well as the the flood times, and to develop early warning systems, in order to minimize life loss and property damage. Shallow Water Equations (SWEs) models based on the assumptions of neglectable vertical accelerations and assuming a hydrostatic pressure distribution were widely used to simulate the dam-break flow [3,4,5,6]. SWEs are probably still the most common approach in practical dam-break flood analysis, especially as large-scale problems can be solved more quickly [7,8]. The Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) method has become popular and is one of the numerical methods most often referred to in the subjects of hydraulics research, such as sediment flow [14,15] and coastal engineering [16,17], sloshing [18], propagation of water waves [19], and wave impact [20]
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