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.     

The equations of complete depth-averaged turbulence model in general orthogonal coordinates

ＤｉｎｇＹａｎ（丁剡）;ＺｈｏｕＸｕｅｙｉ（周雪漪）;ＹｕＣｈａｎｇｚｈａｏ（余常昭）;ＬｉａｎｇＤｏｎｇ（梁栋）（ＲｅｃｅｉｖｅｄＪｕｎｅ１４,１９９４;ＣｏｍｍｕｎｉｃａｔｅｄｂｙＢｉａｎＹｉｎｇｕｉ）ＴＨＥＥＱＵＡＴＩＯＮＳＯＦＣＯＭＰＬＥＴＥ...     

Simulation of non‐hydrostatic,density‐stratified flow in irregular domains

A numerical model has been developed for simulating density‐stratified flow in domains with irregular but simple topography. The model was designed for simulating strong interactions between internal gravity waves and topography, e.g. exchange flows in contracting channels, tidally or convectively driven flow over two‐dimensional sills or waves propagating onto a shoaling bed. The model is based on the non‐hydrostatic, Boussinesq equations of motion for a continuously stratified fluid in a rotating frame, subject to user‐configurable boundary conditions. An orthogonal boundary fitting co‐ordinate system is used for the numerical computations, which rely on a fourth‐order compact differentiation scheme, a third‐order explicit time stepping and a multi‐grid based pressure projection algorithm. The numerical techniques are described and a suite of validation studies are presented. The validation studies include a pointwise comparison of numerical simulations with both analytical solutions and laboratory measurements of non‐linear solitary wave propagation. Simulation results for flows lacking analytical or laboratory data are analysed a posteriori to demonstrate satisfaction of the potential energy balance. Computational results are compared with two‐layer hydraulic predictions in the case of exchange flow through a contracting channel. Finally, a simulation of circulation driven by spatially non‐uniform surface buoyancy flux in an irregular basin is discussed. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

定床弯道内水沙两相运动的数值模拟

在适体同位网格中采用非正交曲线坐标系下的三维k-ε-kp固液两相双流体湍流模型研究弯道内水流和悬浮泥沙运动,主要计算了试验室S型水槽内清水流动的三维流场、120°弯道内水沙两相流动中底沙与底流的运动轨迹以及S型水槽内水沙两相流动的两相流场和泥沙浓度场. 对于S型水槽内清水流动,数值结果与试验结果吻合良好. 120°弯道内水沙两相流动中固液两相的运动轨迹在弯道直线段基本重合,在弯道内泥沙轨迹逐步偏离水体轨迹,其偏离程度随泥沙粒径增大而增大. 从S型水槽内水沙两相流动计算结果中发现泥沙纵向流速在壁面附近比水流纵向速度大,在远离壁面区域比水流纵向速度小;弯道内泥沙横向流速比水流横向流速小;垂向流速在直线段和泥沙沉速相当,在弯道内受螺旋水流影响而变化;两相流速差别随泥沙粒径增大而变大;泥沙浓度呈现下浓上稀的分布,在弯道内横向断面上呈现凸岸大凹岸小的分布,泥沙浓度随泥沙粒径增大而减小.      

Numerical solutions of the shallow water equations with discontinuous bed topography

A simple scheme is developed for treatment of vertical bed topography in shallow water flows. The effect of the vertical step on flows is modelled with the shallow water equations including local energy loss terms. The bed elevation is denoted with z_b^‐ for the left and z_b⁺ for the right values at each grid point, hence exactly representing a discontinuity in the bed topography. The surface gradient method (SGM) is generalized to reconstruct water depths at cell interfaces involving a vertical step so that the fluxes at the cell interfaces can accurately be calculated with a Riemann solver. The scheme is verified by predicting a surge crossing a step, a tidal flow over a step and dam‐break flows on wet/dry beds. The results have shown good agreements compared with analytical solutions and available experimental data. The scheme is efficient, robust, and may be used for practical flow calculations. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The improved surface gradient method for flows simulation in variable bed topography channel using TVD‐MacCormack scheme

This paper reports four different approaches to discretize the source terms for the simulation of one‐dimensional open‐channel flows with rapidly varied bottom topography using TVD‐MacCormack scheme. Compared with other high‐resolution shock‐capturing schemes, MacCormack‐type predictor–corrector method is easy to implement and does not present any additional difficulty in dealing with the source terms. To avoid the generation of artificial numerical waves, if the bottom topography shows strong variation, special treatment of the source terms is still required to eliminate or reduce the artificial numerical error caused by adding TVD corrections to the method. The computed results demonstrated that the improved surface gradient method is more suitable for simulating open‐channel flow with highly irregular bed topography by using the surface gradient instead of the depth gradient for TVD corrections and considering the balancing of the source terms and the flux gradients. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A robust 2D shallow water model for solving flow over complex topography using homogenous flux method

A robust Godunov‐type numerical scheme solver is proposed for solving 2D SWEs and is applied to simulate flow over complex topography with wetting and drying. In reality, the topography is usually complex and irregular; therefore, to avoid the numerical errors generated by such features, a Homogenous Flux Method is used to handle the bed slope term in the SWEs. The method treats the bed slope term as a flux to be incorporated into the flux gradient and so maintains the balance between the two in a Godunov‐type shock‐capturing scheme. The main advantages of the method are: first, it is simple and easy to implement; second, numerical experiments demonstrate that it can handle discontinuous or vertical bed topography without any special treatment and third, it is applicable to both steady and unsteady flows. It is demonstrated how the approach set out here can be applied to the nonlinear hyperbolic system of the SWEs. The two‐dimensional hyperbolic system is then solved by use of a second‐order total‐variation‐diminishing version of the weighted average flux method in conjunction with a Harten‐Lax‐van Leer‐Contract approximate Riemann solver incorporating the new flux gradient term. Several benchmark tests are presented to validate the model and the approach is verified against experimental measurements from the European Union Concerted Action on Dam Break Modelling project. These show very good agreement. Finally, the method is applied to a volcano‐induced outburst flood over an initially dry channel with complex irregular topography to demonstrate the technique's capability in simulating a real flood. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Development of a generalized multi‐layer model for 3‐D simulation of free surface flows

A mathematical model was developed for three‐dimensional (3‐D) simulation of free surface flows. In this model, the flow depth is divided into a number of layers and shallow water equations are integrated in each layer to derive the hydrodynamic equations. To give a general form to this model, each layer is assumed to be non‐horizontal with varying thickness in the flow domain. A non‐orthogonal curvilinear coordinate system is employed in the model, to allow for flexibility in dealing with the irregular geometry of natural watercourses. Due to the similarity in governing equations, two‐dimensional (2‐D) depth averaged programs can be developed into a multi‐layer model. The development for a depth averaged program and its numerical scheme is described in this paper. Experimental data and semi‐analytical solutions are used to evaluate the performance of the model. Three different cases of open channel flow are tested: 1‐flow in a straight open channel, 2‐the flow development region in a channel, and 3‐flow in a meandering channel. It is shown that the model has the capability to predict velocity distribution and secondary flows in complex 3‐D flow conditions. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The study on three-dimensional mathematical model of river bed erosion for water-sediment two-phase flow

Based on the tensor analysis of water-sediment two-phase flow, the basic model equations for clear water flow and sediment-laden flow are deduced in the general curve coordinates for natural water variable-density turbulent flow. Furthermore, corresponding boundary conditions are also presented in connection with the composition and movement of non-uniform bed material. The theoretical results are applied to the calculation of the float open caisson in the construction period and good results are obtained.     

Numerical modelling of ice jam resistance to main channel flow

In northern countries, subfreezing temperatures during the winter season result in the formation of ice covers on most rivers. Towards the end of the winter season, during the spring break-up period, stationary ice covers become weak in strength and break up. The resulting broken ice pieces or ice floes are significantly larger in thickness and have a rougher undersurface relative to sheet ice and impose higher hydraulic resistance. The downstream movement of the ice floes may be arrested under conditions such as an intact ice cover, bridge piers or channel constrictions, among others, thereby initiating a break-up ice jam. These ice jams most often have been observed to cause very high water stages. Detrimental effects caused by these high water levels encompass those of operational and design-related problems such as the flooding of communities due to ice-jam-induced backwater, flood risk assessments, altering of the open water flow regime, bed scour and flooding of bridges. The ability to predict the influence of an ice jam on the main flow is of considerable importance in river engineering and can be viewed upon by its effects on the variation in the water surface levels. All other information is dependent on the foregoing. The ice jam influence on the main flow can be regarded with respect to local and global standpoints. The primary objective of this study is to formulate the influence of the ice jam on the main channel flow. The formulation is then coupled with a two-dimensional numerical model for the simulation of the water flow regime. The data from different laboratory experiments on ice jams are reproduced numerically. Various simulations are then carried out to compute the water surface levels and velocities in channels under ice jam conditions. The numerical results are then compared with the laboratory data. Results show that the mathematical formulation developed to predict the water surface levels and velocities along the ice jam length as well as upstream and downstream of its leading and trailing edges respectively gives satisfactory predictions.     

Godunov-type solution of the shallow water equations on adaptive unstructured triangular grids

A Godunov-type upwind finite volume solver of the non-linear shallow water equations is described. The shallow water equations are expressed in a hyperbolic conservation law formulation for application to cases where the bed topography is spatially variable. Inviscid fluxes at cell interfaces are computed using Roe's approximate Riemann solver. Second-order accurate spatial calculations of the fluxes are achieved by enhancing the polynomial approximation of the gradients of conserved variables within each cell. Numerical oscillations are curbed by means of a non-linear slope limiter. Time integration is second-order accurate and implicit. The numerical model is based on dynamically adaptive unstructured triangular grids. Test cases include an oblique hydraulic jump, jet-forced flow in a flat-bottomed circular reservoir, wind-induced circulation in a circular basin of non-uniform bed topography and the collapse of a circular dam. The model is found to give accurate results in comparison with published analytical and alternative numerical solutions. Dynamic grid adaptation and the use of a second-order implicit time integration scheme are found to enhance the computational efficiency of the model.     

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 surface water modelling using a mesh adaptive technique

Numerical simulation of open water flow in natural courses seems to be doomed to one- or two-dimensional numerical simulations. Investigations of flow hydrodynamics through the application of three-dimensional models actually have very few appearances in the literature. This paper discusses the development and the initial implementation of a general three-dimensional and time-dependent finite volume approach to simulate the hydrodynamics of surface water flow in rivers and lakes. The slightly modified Navier-Stokes equations, together with the continuity and the water depth equations, form the theoretical basis of the model. A body-fitted time-dependent co-ordinate system has been used in the solution process, in order to accommodate the commonly complex and irregular boundary and bathymetry of natural water courses. The proposed adaptive technique allows the mesh to follow the movement of the water boundaries, including the unsteady free-water surface. The primitive variable equations are written in conservative form in the Cartesian co-ordinate system, and the computational procedure is executed in the moveable curvilinear co-ordinate system. Special stabilizing techniques are introduced in order to eliminate the oscillating behaviour associated with the finite volume formulation. Also, a new and comprehensive approximation for the pressure forces at the faces of a control volume is presented. Finally, results of several tests demonstrate the performance of the finite volume approach coupled with the adaptive technique employed in the three-dimensional time-dependent mesh system.     

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.     

The loss of stability of laminar flow in open channel and the mechanism of sand ripple formation

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Joint mapping of bed elevation and flow depth in microscale morphodynamics experiments

Experiments conducted at very small scales are increasingly being used to study the morphodynamics of sediment beds under the action of flowing water. For such microscale experiments, we propose a measurement approach aimed at jointly mapping the evolving bed topography and distribution of water depth. The proposed measurement system includes a single color camera, a red stripe laser and green fluorescent dye. The stripe laser is scanned back and forth over the experimental surface, while the fluorescent dye is mixed with the flowing water, allowing both the bed topography and water depth to be reconstructed from color images. We present the steps needed for image calibration and processing, including simple models of light refraction and attenuation. The methods are verified using a surface of known geometry, then demonstrated for a challenging groundwater channelization experiment. For this application, co-registered maps of bed topography and water depth are obtained at millimetric resolution for an experimental domain of 650 mm by 650 mm, at a rate of one pair of maps per minute (experimental time). The methods are found to yield accurate results and vividly depict the evolution of a self-formed channel network.     

An immersed boundary method wall model for high‐Reynolds‐number channel flow over complex topography

High‐Reynolds‐number channel flows regularly encounter topographies composed of multiple length scales and that protrude into the boundary layer. Physically, the presence of immersed obstacles leads to increased velocity gradients, turbulence production, and manifestation of wakes. Considerable challenges are associated with numerically describing the presence of obstacles in channel flows. Common approaches include generation of a computational mesh that is uniquely designed for the flow and obstacle, the immersed boundary method, and terrain‐following coordinates. There are challenges and limitations associated with each of these techniques. Specification of boundary conditions representing the perimeter of solid obstacles is a primary challenge of the immersed boundary method. In this document, a simplistic canopy stress‐like wall model is used to impose boundary conditions. The model isolates aerodynamically relevant local frontal areas through evaluation of the gradient of the topographic height field. The gradient of the height field describes both the surface‐normal direction and the frontal area, making it ideal for detecting areas on which the flow impinges. The model is tested in numerical simulations of turbulent half‐channel flow over topographies with different obstacles affixed–right prisms, rectangular prisms, ellipsoidal mounds, and sinusoids. In all cases, the performance is strong relative to datasets presented in the literature. Results are finally presented for numerical simulation of flow over complex synthetic fractal‐like topography and a synthetic city. These results show interesting trends in how the turbulent multiscale flow field responds to multiscale topography. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

SPH modelling of depth‐limited turbulent open channel flows over rough boundaries

A numerical model based on the smoothed particle hydrodynamics method is developed to simulate depth‐limited turbulent open channel flows over hydraulically rough beds. The 2D Lagrangian form of the Navier–Stokes equations is solved, in which a drag‐based formulation is used based on an effective roughness zone near the bed to account for the roughness effect of bed spheres and an improved sub‐particle‐scale model is applied to account for the effect of turbulence. The sub‐particle‐scale model is constructed based on the mixing‐length assumption rather than the standard Smagorinsky approach to compute the eddy‐viscosity. A robust in/out‐flow boundary technique is also proposed to achieve stable uniform flow conditions at the inlet and outlet boundaries where the flow characteristics are unknown. The model is applied to simulate uniform open channel flows over a rough bed composed of regular spheres and validated by experimental velocity data. To investigate the influence of the bed roughness on different flow conditions, data from 12 experimental tests with different bed slopes and uniform water depths are simulated, and a good agreement has been observed between the model and experimental results of the streamwise velocity and turbulent shear stress. This shows that both the roughness effect and flow turbulence should be addressed in order to simulate the correct mechanisms of turbulent flow over a rough bed boundary and that the presented smoothed particle hydrodynamics model accomplishes this successfully. © 2016 The Authors International Journal for Numerical Methods in Fluids Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd     

A modified lattice Boltzmann model for shallow water flows over complex topography

A modified lattice Boltzmann model is proposed to describe shallow water flows over complex topography. In the proposed model, the quadratic depth term is excluded from the equilibrium distribution functions (EDFs), and the hydrostatic pressure term is combined with the bed slope term to be treated as a part of the sourcing term in the lattice Boltzmann equation (LBE). Therefore, it is unnecessary to match the coefficients of the quadratic depth term in the EDFs with those of the bed slope term in the sourcing terms in the LBE. This would bring more flexibility to the treatment of the sourcing terms in the LBE. In order to recover the shallow water equations (SWEs), the basic constraints are redefined, and under these constraints, the coefficients of the EDFs are derived afterwards. Several benchmark problems are used to validate the proposed model, including stationary case, steady flows over a two‐dimensional bump and tidal wave flows over irregular bed elevation. The computed results are in excellent agreement with the results of the other numerical methods and the analytical solutions, indicating that the proposed model is capable of simulating shallow water flows over complex bathymetry. It also proves that the proposed model has potential to produce competitive solutions to shallow water flows over complex bed topography. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.