Lattice Boltzmann modeling of shallow water flows over discontinuous beds

Numerical modeling of shallow water flows over discontinuous beds is presented. The flows are described with the shallow water equations and the equations are solved using the lattice Boltzmann method (LBM) with single relaxation time (Bhatnagar–Gross–Krook‐LBM (BGK‐LBM)) and the multiple relaxation time (MRT‐LBM). The weighted centered scheme for force term together with the bed height for a bed slope is described to improve simulation of flows over discontinuous bed. Furthermore, the resistance stress is added to include the local head loss caused by flow over a step. Four test cases, one‐dimensional tidal over regular bed and steps, dam‐break flows, and two‐dimensional shallow water flow over a square block, are considered to verify the present method. Agreements between predictions and analytical solutions are satisfactory. Furthermore, the performance and CPU cost time of BGK‐LBM and MRT‐LBM are compared and studied. The results have shown that the lattice Boltzmann method is simple and accurate for simulating shallow water flows over discontinuous beds. This demonstrates the capability and applicability of the lattice Boltzmann method in modeling shallow water flows on bed topography with a discontinuity in practical hydraulic engineering. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Boundary layer structure of oscillatory open-channel shallow flows over smooth and rough beds

The boundary layer structure of oscillatory shallow open channel flows has been studied in a wide flume. Fluorescence solution was released at a porous rough bed through a diffuser covered by gravel of 0.5 cm grain size. A planar laser-induced fluorescence (PLIF) system was used to visualise the dye plumes in both vertical and horizontal planes for a qualitative understanding of the roles of large-scale flow structures in mass transport. A variety of tests were conducted for a range of oscillatory periods (30–240 s), water depths (3–16 cm) and velocity amplitudes (0.027–0.325 m/s), which cover a wide range of oscillatory flows with Reynolds numbers Re _a varied from 0.3 × 10⁴ (laminar) to 2.1 × 10⁶ (fully turbulent). For quantitative investigation, a novel technique, namely combined laser-induced fluorescence (LIF) and 2D laser Doppler velocimetry (LDV) (LIF/LDV), was developed and used to measure the velocity and solute concentration simultaneously in a vertical plane over 50 cycles. From the dye plumes revealed by the PLIF in transitional flows, there are different patterns of flow structure and solute transport with three representative stages of acceleration, deceleration and flow reversal. In the acceleration stage, turbulence was suppressed with dye layers adhering to the surface with little vertical mass transport. In the deceleration stage, flame-like turbulent structures occurred when turbulence generation was prominent. This was investigated quantitatively by recording the percentage occurrence of the adhered smooth layers per cycle. For those smooth bed cases with Re _a < 1.8 × 10⁵, the adhered smooth dye layers type of boundary layer occupied 100% of the oscillation period. Over a sufficiently high Re _a , a rough bed can generate fully turbulent oscillatory flows without the appearance of adhering dye layers. Between these two extremes, a transitional flow regime occurs in a wide range of flow conditions: Re _a > 2.7 × 10⁴ over the rough bed and Re _a > 8.3 × 10⁶ over a smooth bed.     

Using a piecewise linear bottom to fit the bed variation in a laterally averaged,z‐co‐ordinate hydrodynamic model

In developing a 3D or laterally averaged 2D model for free‐surface flows using the finite difference method, the water depth is generally discretized either with the z‐co‐ordinate (z‐levels) or a transformed co‐ordinate (e.g. the so‐called σ‐co‐ordinate or σ‐levels). In a z‐level model, the water depth is discretized without any transformation, while in a σ‐level model, the water depth is discretized after a so‐called σ‐transformation that converts the water column to a unit, so that the free surface will be 0 (or 1) and the bottom will be ‐1 (or 0) in the stretched co‐ordinate system. Both discretization methods have their own advantages and drawbacks. It is generally not conclusive that one discretization method always works better than the other. The biggest problem for the z‐level model normally stems from the fact that it cannot fit the topography properly, while a σ‐level model does not have this kind of a topography‐fitting problem. To solve the topography‐fitting problem in a laterally averaged, 2D model using z‐levels, a piecewise linear bottom is proposed in this paper. Since the resulting computational cells are not necessarily rectangular looking at the x–z plane, flux‐based finite difference equations are used in the model to solve the governing equations. In addition to the piecewise linear bottom, the model can also be run with full cells or partial cells (both full cell and partial cell options yield a staircase bottom that does not fit the real bottom topography). Two frictionless wave cases were chosen to evaluate the responses of the model to different treatments of the topography. One wave case is a boundary value problem, while the other is an initial value problem. To verify that the piecewise linear bottom does not cause increased diffusions for areas with steep bottom slopes, a barotropic case in a symmetric triangular basin was tested. The model was also applied to a real estuary using various topography treatments. The model results demonstrate that fitting the topography is important for the initial value problem. For the boundary value problem, topography‐fitting may not be very critical if the vertical spacing is appropriate. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An evaluation of force terms in the lattice Boltzmann models in simulating shallow water flows over complex topography

Proper approximation of the force terms, especially the bed slope term, is of crucial importance to simulating shallow water flows in lattice Boltzmann (LB) models. However, there is little discussion on the schemes of adding force terms to LB models for shallow water equations (SWEs). In this study, we evaluate the performance of forcing schemes coupled with different LB models (LABSWE and MLBSWE) in simulating shallow water flows over complex topography and try to find out their intrinsic characteristics and applicability. Three cases are adopted for evaluation, including a stationary case, a one-dimensional tidal wave flow over an irregular bed, and a steady flow over a two-dimensional seamount. The simulating results are compared with analytical solutions or the results produced by the finite difference method. For LABSWE, all the forcing schemes, except for the weighting factor method, fail to produce accurate solutions for the test cases; this is probably due to the mismatch between the bed slope term in source terms and the quadratic depth term of the equilibrium distribution functions in these forcing schemes. For MLBSWE, all the forcing schemes are capable of simulating flows over the complex topography accurately; furthermore, those schemes taking into account the collision effect τ to eliminate the momentum induced by forces provide more accurate solutions with quicker convergence as the lattice size decreases. In this view, MLBSWE can bring more flexibility in treating the force terms and thus can be a better tool to simulate shallow water flows over complex topography in practical application.     

On the approximation of local efflux/influx bed discharge in the shallow water equations based on a wave propagation algorithm

In cities, flood waves may propagate over street surfaces below which lie complicated pipe networks used for storm drainage and sewage. The flood and pipe flows can interact at connections between the underground pipes and the street surface. The present paper examines this interaction, using the shallow water equations to model the flood wave hydrodynamics. Sources and sinks in the mass conservation equation are used to model the pipe inflow and outflow conditions at bed connections. We consider the problem reduced to one dimension. The shallow water equations are solved using a Godunov‐type wave propagation scheme. Wave speeds are modified in the wave propagation algorithm to enable flows to be simulated over nearly dry beds and dry states. First, the model is used to simulate vertical flows through finite gaps in the bed. Next, the interaction of the vertical flows with a dam break flow is considered for both dry and wet beds. An efflux number, En, is defined based on the vertical efflux velocity and the gap length. Comparisons are made with numerical predictions from STAR‐CD, a commercial Navier–Stokes solver that models the free‐surface motions, and a parameter study is undertaken to investigate the effect of the one‐dimensional approximation of the present model, for a range of non‐dimensional efflux numbers. It is found that the shallow flow model gives sensible predictions at all time provided En<0.5, and for long durations for En>0.5. Dam break flow over an underground connecting pipe is also considered. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Bathymetry reconstruction based on the zero-inertia shallow water approximation

The knowledge of the channel bed topography is paramount in modeling the hydrodynamics of open channel flows. Indeed, flow models based on the Shallow Water Approximation require prior information on the channel bed topography to accurately capture the flow features in natural rivers, estuaries, and flood plains. We present here a numerical technique for reconstructing the channel bed topography from given free surface elevation data for steep open channel flows for which the zero-inertia shallow water approximation holds. In this context, the shallow water equations are modified by neglecting inertia terms while retaining the effects of the bed slope and friction terms. We show in this work that by algebraic manipulation, we can recast the governing equations into a single first-order partial differential equation which describes the inverse problem which consists in finding the bed topography from known free surface elevation data. Interestingly, the analysis shows that the inverse problem does not require the knowledge of the bed roughness. The forward problem is solved using MacCormack’s explicit numerical scheme by considering unsteady modified shallow water equations. However, the inverse problem is solved using the method of characteristics. The results of the inverse and the forward problem are successfully tested against each other on two different test cases.     

A well‐balanced upstream flux‐splitting finite‐volume scheme for shallow‐water flow simulations with irregular bed topography

This study extends the upstream flux‐splitting finite‐volume (UFF) scheme to shallow water equations with source terms. Coupling the hydrostatic reconstruction method (HRM) with the UFF scheme achieves a resultant numerical scheme that adequately balances flux gradients and source terms. The proposed scheme is validated in three benchmark problems and applied to flood flows in the natural/irregular river with bridge pier obstructions. The results of the simulations are in satisfactory agreement with the available analytical solutions, experimental data and field measurements. Comparisons of the present results with those obtained by the surface gradient method (SGM) demonstrate the superior stability and higher accuracy of the HRM. The stability test results also show that the HRM requires less CPU time (up to 60%) than the SGM. The proposed well‐balanced UFF scheme is accurate, stable and efficient to solve flow problems involving irregular bed topography. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Three‐dimensional modeling of non‐hydrostatic free‐surface flows on unstructured grids

A three‐dimensional numerical model is presented for the simulation of unsteady non‐hydrostatic shallow water flows on unstructured grids using the finite volume method. The free surface variations are modeled by a characteristics‐based scheme, which simulates sub‐critical and super‐critical flows. Three‐dimensional velocity components are considered in a collocated arrangement with a σ‐coordinate system. A special treatment of the pressure term is developed to avoid the water surface oscillations. Convective and diffusive terms are approximated explicitly, and an implicit discretization is used for the pressure term to ensure exact mass conservation. The unstructured grid in the horizontal direction and the σ coordinate in the vertical direction facilitate the use of the model in complicated geometries. Solution of the non‐hydrostatic equations enables the model to simulate short‐period waves and vertically circulating flows. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A correction for balancing discontinuous bed slopes in two‐dimensional smoothed particle hydrodynamics shallow water modeling

In this paper, a smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) numerical model for the shallow water equations (SWEs) with bed slope source term balancing is presented. The solution of the SWEs using SPH is attractive being a conservative, mesh‐free, automatically adaptive method without special treatment for wet‐dry interfaces. Recently, the capability of the SPH–SWEs numerical scheme with shock capturing and general boundary conditions has been used for predicting practical flooding problems. The balance between the bed slope source term and fluxes in shallow water models is desirable for reliable simulations of flooding over bathymetries where discontinuities are present and has received some attention in the framework of Finite Volume Eulerian models. The imbalance because of the source term resulting from the calculation of the the water depth is eradicated by means of a corrected mass, which is able to remove the error introduced by a bottom discontinuity. Two different discretizations of the momentum equation are presented herein: the first one is based on the variational formulation of the SWEs in order to obtain a fully conservative formulation, whereas the second one is obtained using a non‐conservative form of the free‐surface elevation gradient. In both formulations, a variable smoothing length is considered. Results are presented demonstrating the corrections preserve still water in the vicinity of either 1D or 2D bed discontinuities and provide close agreement with 1D analytical solutions for rapidly varying flows over step changes in the bed. The method is finally applied to 2D dam break flow over a square obstacle where the balanced formulation improves the agreement with experimental measurements of the free surface. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Baroclinic stability for a family of two‐level,semi‐implicit numerical methods for the 3D shallow water equations

The baroclinic stability of a family of two time‐level, semi‐implicit schemes for the 3D hydrostatic, Boussinesq Navier–Stokes equations (i.e. the shallow water equations), which originate from the TRIM model of Casulli and Cheng (Int. J. Numer. Methods Fluids 1992; 15 :629–648), is examined in a simple 2D horizontal–vertical domain. It is demonstrated that existing mass‐conservative low‐dissipation semi‐implicit methods, which are unconditionally stable in the inviscid limit for barotropic flows, are unstable in the same limit for baroclinic flows. Such methods can be made baroclinically stable when the integrated continuity equation is discretized with a barotropically dissipative backwards Euler scheme. A general family of two‐step predictor‐corrector schemes is proposed that have better theoretical characteristics than existing single‐step schemes. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A further work on multi‐phase two‐fluid approach for compressible multi‐phase flows

This paper is to continue our previous work Niu (Int. J. Numer. Meth. Fluids 2001; 36 :351–371) on solving a two‐fluid model for compressible liquid–gas flows using the AUSMDV scheme. We first propose a pressure–velocity‐based diffusion term originally derived from AUSMDV scheme Wada and Liou (SIAM J. Sci. Comput. 1997; 18 (3):633—657) to enhance its robustness. The scheme can be applied to gas and liquid fluids universally. We then employ the stratified flow model Chang and Liou (J. Comput. Physics 2007; 225 :240–873) for spatial discretization. By defining the fluids in different regions and introducing inter‐phasic force on cell boundary, the stratified flow model allows the conservation laws to be applied on each phase, and therefore, it is able to capture fluid discontinuities, such as the fluid interfaces and shock waves, accurately. Several benchmark tests are studied, including the Ransom's Faucet problem, 1D air–water shock tube problems, 2D shock‐water column and 2D shock‐bubble interaction problems. The results indicate that the incorporation of the new dissipation into AUSM⁺‐up scheme and the stratified flow model is simple, accurate and robust enough for the compressible multi‐phase flows. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An improved ghost‐cell immersed boundary method for compressible flow simulations

This study presents an improved ghost‐cell immersed boundary approach to represent a solid body in compressible flow simulations. In contrast to the commonly used approaches, in the present work, ghost cells are mirrored through the boundary described using a level‐set method to farther image points, incorporating a higher‐order extra/interpolation scheme for the ghost‐cell values. A sensor is introduced to deal with image points near the discontinuities in the flow field. Adaptive mesh refinement is used to improve the representation of the geometry efficiently in the Cartesian grid system. The improved ghost‐cell method is validated against four test cases: (a) double Mach reflections on a ramp, (b) smooth Prandtl–Meyer expansion flows, (c) supersonic flows in a wind tunnel with a forward‐facing step, and (d) supersonic flows over a circular cylinder. It is demonstrated that the improved ghost‐cell method can reach the accuracy of second order in L¹ norm and higher than first order in L^∞ norm. Direct comparisons against the cut‐cell method demonstrate that the improved ghost‐cell method is almost equally accurate with better efficiency for boundary representation in high‐fidelity compressible flow simulations. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Numerical treatment of a discontinuous top surface in 2D shallow water mixed flow modeling

This paper presents a numerical strategy based on shallow water equations (SWE) coupled with the 2D Preissmann slot model to handle a ceiling step discontinuity in finite volume schemes for mixed flow modeling. In practice, a typical situation would be a closed structure, such as a bridge or culvert, which induces a sudden vertical flow constriction and may even run partly or totally full in high flow conditions. In such case, both the inlet and outlet of the structure involve a discontinuity in the top elevation. This special singularity is topologically represented by inserting a fictitious cell between 2 adjacent computational cells characterized by sharply different ceiling elevation. The 2D SWE are solved by means of a well‐balanced quasi‐conservative Godunov‐type numerical scheme based on the Slope Limiter Centered (SLIC) scheme. The flow variables at each boundary of the fictitious cell are reconstructed by adopting the cross‐sectional shape of the adjoining cell. Accordingly, the dynamic effect of the structure deck on the flow is suitably modeled, and the C‐property for a stationary solution is rigorously satisfied, even when the closed structure is partially full. The capability of the numerical scheme is verified by comparison with both novel analytical solutions of 1D Riemann problems with a ceiling step discontinuity and experimental data of steady and unsteady mixed flows available in literature. Finally, a real‐scale application to a multiple arch bridge is presented. The results show that the method is robust and effective in predicting the 2D features induced by a crossing structure on the flow dynamics.     

Application of a second‐order Runge–Kutta discontinuous Galerkin scheme for the shallow water equations with source terms

The present work addresses the numerical prediction of discontinuous shallow water flows by the application of a second‐order Runge–Kutta discontinuous Galerkin scheme (RKDG2). The unsteady flow of water in a one‐dimensional approach is described by the Saint Venant's model which incorporates source terms in practical applications. Therefore, the RKDG2 scheme is reformulated with a simple way to integrate source terms. Further, an adequate boundary conditions handling, by the theory of characteristics, was overviewed to be adapted to the external points of the mesh, as well as to some points of local invalidity of the Saint Venant's model. To validate the proposed technique, steady and transient test problems (all having a reference solution) were considered and computed by means of the overall method. The results were illustrated jointly with the reference solution and the results carried out by a traditional second‐order finite volume (FV2) scheme implemented with the same techniques as the RKDG2. The proposed method has proven its practical consideration when solving discontinuous shallow water flow involving: non‐prismatic channels, various cross‐sections, smoothly varying bed topography and internal boundary conditions. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Parallel large eddy simulation of turbulent flow around MIRA model using linear equal‐order finite element method

A parallel large eddy simulation code that adopts domain decomposition method has been developed for large‐scale computation of turbulent flows around an arbitrarily shaped body. For the temporal integration of the unsteady incompressible Navier–Stokes equation, fractional 4‐step splitting algorithm is adopted, and for the modelling of small eddies in turbulent flows, the Smagorinsky model is used. For the parallelization of the code, METIS and Message Passing Interface Libraries are used, respectively, to partition the computational domain and to communicate data between processors. To validate the parallel architecture and to estimate its performance, a three‐dimensional laminar driven cavity flow inside a cubical enclosure has been solved. To validate the turbulence calculation, the turbulent channel flows at Re_τ = 180 and 1050 are simulated and compared with previous results. Then, a backward facing step flow is solved and compared with a DNS result for overall code validation. Finally, the turbulent flow around MIRA model at Re = 2.6 × 10⁶ is simulated by using approximately 6.7 million nodes. Scalability curve obtained from this simulation shows that scalable results are obtained. The calculated drag coefficient agrees better with the experimental result than those previously obtained by using two‐equation turbulence models. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A high‐order PIC method for advection‐dominated flow with application to shallow water waves

A hybrid Eulerian‐Lagrangian particle‐in‐cell–type numerical method is developed for the solution of advection‐dominated flow problems. Particular attention is given over to the high‐order transfer of flow properties from the particles to the grid. For smooth flows, the method presented is of formal high‐order accuracy in space. The method is applied to solve the nonlinear shallow water equations resulting in a new, and novel, shock capturing shallow water solver. The approach is able to simulate complex shallow water flows, which can contain an arbitrary number of discontinuities. Both trivial and nontrivial bottom topography is considered, and it is shown that the new scheme is inherently well balanced, exactly satisfying the ‐property. The scheme is verified against several one‐dimensional benchmark shallow water problems. These include cases that involve transcritical flow regimes, shock waves, and nontrivial bathymetry. In all the test cases presented, very good results are obtained.     

Exactly well‐balanced positivity preserving nonstaggered central scheme for open‐channel flows

In this paper, we construct and study an exactly well‐balanced positivity‐preserving nonstaggered central scheme for shallow water flows in open channels with irregular geometry and nonflat bottom topography. We introduce a novel discretization of the source term based on hydrostatic reconstruction to obtain the exactly well‐balanced property for the still water steady‐state solution even in the presence of wetting and drying transitions. The positivity‐preserving property of the cross‐sectional wet area is obtained by using a modified “draining" time‐step technique. The current scheme is also Riemann‐solver‐free. Several classical problems of open‐channel flows are used to test these properties. Numerical results confirm that the current scheme is robust, exactly well‐balanced and positivity‐preserving.     

A three-dimensional hydrodynamic model in curvilinear co-ordinates with collocated grid

A three-dimensional hydrodynamic model has been developed for turbulent flows with free surface. In the horizontal x–y-plane, a boundary-fitted curvilinear co-ordinate system is adopted, while in the vertical direction, a σ-co-ordinate transformation is used to represent the free surface and bed topography or lower boundary. Using the finite volume method, the convection terms are discretized using Roe's second-order-accurate scheme. The governing equations are solved in a collocated grid system by a fractional three-step implicit algorithm that has been developed to handle the velocity–pressure–depth coupling problem of free surface incompressible fluid flows. The present study is the extension of previous work to three-dimensional turbulent flows. The model has been applied to three test cases. Comparison with available data shows that the model developed is successful, and is valuable to engineering application. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A robust and well‐balanced scheme for the 2D Saint‐Venant system on unstructured meshes with friction source term

In the following lines, we propose a numerical scheme for the shallow‐water system supplemented by topography and friction source terms, in a 2D unstructured context. This work proposes an improved version of the well‐balanced and robust numerical model recently introduced by Duran et al. (J. Comp. Phys., 235 , 565–586, 2013) for the pre‐balanced shallow‐water equations, accounting for varying topography. The present work aims at relaxing the robustness condition and includes a friction term. To this purpose, the scheme is modified using a recent method, entirely based on a modified Riemann solver. This approach preserves the robustness and well‐balanced properties of the original scheme and prevents unstable computations in the presence of low water depths. A series of numerical experiments are devoted to highlighting the performances of the resulting scheme. Simulations involving dry areas, complex geometry and topography are proposed to validate the stability of the numerical model in the neighbourhood of wet/dry transitions. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.