Title: A first-order adaptive solution to rapidly spreading flood waves

Authors: Chi Zhang; Qiuhua Liang; Junxian Yin

Addresses: School of Hydraulic Engineering, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian 116024, China ' School of Civil Engineering and Geosciences, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 7RU, England, UK ' China Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Research, Beijing 100038, China

Abstract: Aiming to provide accurate and efficient solutions to complex flood waves induced by dam breaks and flash floods, this work introduces a structured adaptive grid based model that solves the 2D shallow water equations using a first-order finite volume Godunov-type scheme. The computational grids dynamically evolves according to the local topographic features, moving wet-dry interfaces and other flow features involving sharp surface gradients. The model is validated against two dam-break benchmark tests with experimental data. The effect of the order of numerical accuracy on the numerical results is also assessed and discussed.

Keywords: AMR; adaptive mesh refinement; flood modelling; SWEs; shallow water equations; flood simulation; finite volume Godunov model; dam breaks; numerical accuracy; flood waves; flooding; flash floods.

DOI: 10.1504/PCFD.2013.050645

Progress in Computational Fluid Dynamics, An International Journal, 2013 Vol.13 No.1, pp.1 - 10

Published online: 30 Oct 2013 *

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