Mathematical modeling for flood mitigation: Effect of bifurcation angles in river flowrates

Abstract

This paper investigates the river flowrate at two branches of bifurcated river. The mathematical model fro m the literature is formulated based on momentum principle and mass continuity to cope with river flowrate at different bifurcation angles. The hydraulic variables, geometric properties of trapezoidal cross-sectional river and other physical characteristics of bifurcated river are provided, which may be assumed to be given beforehand for practical applications. An example of river bifurcation problem is given by UTM Centre for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (UTM-CIAM), Universiti Teknologi Malaysia. Maple software is used to implement the proposed model equation and generate the results. The amount of bifurcated river flowrate with different bifurcation angles is determined, resulting in a reasonable discussion. It is shown that for specific bifurcation angles, the river flowrates after the bifurcated junction are less than the critical flowrate. Finally, the results of applied problem indicate that the right-angled river bifurcation would be preferable to mitigate flood.