Investigating the Influence of Dam-Breach Parameters on Dam-Break Connected Flood Hydrograph

Abstract

The dam-break connected flood hydrograph properties primarily depend on the breach geometry and the time for the breach to fully develop. Therefore, the prediction of dam’s breach geometry is essential in dam-break studies. To understand the impact of breach parameters on flood peak hydrograph, five of the most common breach prediction methods are implemented in the presented study to estimate the flood hydrographs using 2-dimensional HEC-RAS model. The Ürkmez Dam is chosen as the case study due to the presence of a residential settlement located right at the dam downstream where undesirably any breach of the dam body can have inevitable and dramatical risks on downstream populations and properties. Various levels for reservoir storage are investigated in each method. In order to assess the impact of each breach parameter on the resulting flood hydrographs, sensitivity analysis is carried out. The peak discharge rates and the times to peak for each analyzed scenario are investigated and discussed. Results reveal that Froehlich approach is the most reasonable method for estimating dam-breach parameters as far as exemplified in the Ürkmez Dam case. Furthermore, sensitivity analysis points out that the parameter of the breach side slope has no major influence on the time to peak while having an insignificant impact on the peak discharge. Besides, the study exhibits that both the peak discharge and the time to peak characteristics are highly sensitive to breach time formation parameter. In the light of these targeted findings, the study is aimed to contribute to other relevant research in designating the set of key parameters in experimental or modeling efforts in a way to limit the uncertainty that substantially originates from personal judgment.