Simulation of one-dimensional dam-break flood routing based on HEC-RAS

Abstract

Dam-break is a serious disaster resulting in severe damage to downstream communities. Therefore, analyzing the affected range and the evolution process of dam-break floods in advance is valuable. However, the difficulties and challenges lie in the complexity of the breaking process of earth-rock dams, the uncertainty in the evolution of dam-break floods, and the geographical variability. Given this, the objective of this study is to analyze the characteristics of the dam-break flood evolution. The study chooses Chengbi River Reservoir as the research object, HEC-RAS as the simulation software, unsteady flow differential equations and one-dimensional Saint-Venant equations as the control equations, and it uses four-point implicit finite difference method for discrete solution. In this paper, the dam-break flood evolution is simulated under three boundary conditions (full breach, 1/2 breach, 1/3 breach), and the main results are as follows. From the dam site section to the Tianzhou hy-drological station section, the peak discharge decay rates of the three schemes are 78%, 77%, and 67%, respectively. The water level decay rates of the three schemes are 47%, 36%, and 30%, respectively. A 1 m increase in the bursting water level elevation increases the peak flow by ap-proximately 7%, and the highest water level in front of the dam by 1 m, and delays the peak time by 1.5 h on average. In addition, the preliminary inundation extent for the Baise City is obtained. The analysis results can provide a fundamental basis for flood control as well as a reference for flood disaster management.