Comparison between hydrostatic and total pressure simulations of dam-break flows

Abstract

ABSTRACT Shallow water models are commonly used to simulate dam-break flow; however, shallow water equations usually assume a hydrostatic pressure assumption that can limit model applications. Dam-break flow can also be solved by total pressure formulation with Navier–Stokes equations, that are computationally more expensive but can deal with a wider range of problems. We propose a multiphase flow code with second-order precision, called SuLi-LS. This code uses the Level Set methodology and can consider total pressure or hydrostatic pressure assumption in Navier–Stokes solution. To analyse the differences between hydrostatic and total pressure, we compared SuLi-LS results with experimental cases. The comparison shows that total pressure consideration provides accurate results for the dam-break flow problems, and it is a considerably better approach than considering hydrostatic pressure assumption. We found that hydrostatic pressure assumption can be valid for dam-break flows in which there is an underlying water bed.