Effects of initial stage of dam-break flows on sediment transport

Abstract

Experimental and numerical studies of dam-break flows over sediment bed under dry and wet downstream conditions are investigated and their effects on sediment transport and bed change on flow are illustrated. Dam-break waves are generated by suddenly lifting a gate inside the flume for three different upstream reservoir heads. The flow characteristics are detected by employing simple and economical measuring technique. The numerical model solves the two-dimensional Reynolds-Averaged Navier–Stokes (RANS) equations with k-ε turbulence closure using the explicit finite volume method on adaptive, non-staggered grid. The model is validated with laboratory data and is extended for simulating non-equilibrium sediment transport and bed evolution process. The volume of fluid technique is used to track the evolution of the free surface, satisfying the advection equation. The comparison study reveals that the current model is capable of defining the dam-break flow and improves the accuracy of determining morphological changes at the initial stages of the dam-break flow. A good agreement between the model solutions and the experimental data is observed.