Numerical Simulation of Flash Floods Routing Based on Improved Leap-Frog Method

Abstract

in the 2-d numerical simulation of flash flood disaster, due to flood often occurred in the steep terrain and water flow rapidly changed, lead to that the calculated value is unstable and even the calculation diverge in the simulation. This paper presents a grid outflow correction method, which is based on the leap-frog finite difference format, through modifying the outflow rate of the grid circularly, to ensure the mass conservation in the whole process of computing. In the local dam bursting model, the simulated result comparison of the grid outflow correction method and the algorithm of implicit alternating direction on the mass conservation shows that, the new method can ensure the simulation accuracy and the numerical stability under the condition of steep terrain and moving boundary. According to the proposed method, the simulation analysis in the process of extreme flash flood disasters which happened in 2010 Zhouqu county in Gansu province was carried out. The comparison of simulation results and remote sensing estimation results shows that the deviation of the flood evolution time, speed and impact height are within 5%, and the consistency of evolution path is good, which verifies the validity of the algorithm.