Hydrodynamic Study of the Flows Caused by Dam Break Around a Rectangular Obstacle

Abstract

The whole valley corresponding to a dam is involved during a dam break. Therefore, buildings and roads become obstacles to the flow in that region. This study presents a numerical and experimental study of hydrodynamics influence on waves generated during dam break due to such obstacles. The case is simulated by the LSM based CFD program, i.e., REEF3D, which solves the incompressible RANS equation with k-ω turbulence model and shows the free surface in a naturalistic way. The CFD model accuracy is checked by comparing the result with an experiment conducted in the hydraulics laboratory of IIT Kharagpur. In the experimental study, the test case shows the effect of obstacles on the flow velocity and water height in the channel. A good agreement of simulated result and experiment result was found, which shows that the CFD model is able to produce the main features of the flow.