Use of fluid structure interaction technique for flash flood impact assessment of structural components

Abstract

AbstractPrediction of the initial impact force is a major task associated with flood damage assessment of structures subjected to flash flooding especially due to dam break and levee breach. Investigation of failure modes such as overturning and sliding due to soil scouring or erosion is not relevant if the structure first fails by the massive initial dynamic impact. Therefore, a careful assessment of the initial flood impact is critical for the design of structures and during the flood damage assessment process. In most of the past flood damage studies, total flood load acting on the structures was estimated by maximum velocities and water depths obtained from the two‐dimensional hydrodynamic models or the field data. The outcome of these results has shown potential uncertainty in current methods. We present a new approach to calculate the load on structural components impacted by a dam break wave, by modelling the three‐dimensional free surface fluid–structure interaction (FSI) using the incompressible computational fluid dynamics (ICFD) techniques. Two experimental datasets available in the literature are used to validate the results. Finally, we conclude that FSI/IFCD method can be used to accurately determine the initial impact force on structural components subjected to flash floods for flood damage assessment.