Abstract: | The standard two-dimensional shallow water equation formulation assumes a mild bed slope and no curvature effect. These assumptions limit the applicability of these equations for some important classes of problems. In particular, flow over a spillway is affected by the bed curvature via a decidedly non-hydrostatic pressure distribution. A detailed derivation of a more general equation set is given here in Part I. The method relies upon a perturbation expansion to simplify a bed-fitted co-ordinate configuration of the three-dimensional Euler equations. The resulting equations are essentially the equivalent of the two-dimensional shallow water equations but with curvature included and without the mild slope assumption. A finite element analysis and flume result are given in Part II. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. |