The solution of the dam-break problem in the Porous Shallow water Equations

Abstract

Abstract The Porous Shallow water Equations are commonly used to evaluate the propagation of flooding waves in the urban environment. These equations may exhibit not only classic shocks, rarefactions, and contact discontinuities, as in the ordinary two-dimensional Shallow water Equations, but also special discontinuities at abrupt porosity jumps. In this paper, an appropriate parameterization of the stationary weak solutions of one-dimensional Porous Shallow water Equations supplies the inner structure of the porosity jumps. The exact solution of the corresponding dam-break problem is presented, and six different wave configurations are individuated, proving that the solution exists and it is unique for given initial conditions and geometric characteristics. These results can be used as a benchmark in order to validate one- and two-dimensional numerical models for the solution of the Porous Shallow water Equations. In addition, it is presented a novel Finite Volume scheme where the porosity jumps are taken into account by means of a variables reconstruction approach. The dam-break results supplied by this numerical scheme are compared with the exact dam-break results, showing the promising capabilities of this numerical approach. Finally, the advantages of the novel porosity jump definition are shown by comparison with other definitions available in the literature, demonstrating its advantages, and the issues raising in real world applications are discussed.