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Riemann solution for a class of morphodynamic shallow water dam-break problems

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 November 2017

Fangfang Zhu
Affiliation:
Department of Civil Engineering, Research Centre for Fluids and Thermal Engineering, University of Nottingham Ningbo China, Ningbo, 315100, China
Nicholas Dodd*
Affiliation:
Faculty of Engineering, University of Nottingham, Nottingham NG7 2RD, UK
*
†Email address for correspondence: Nicholas.Dodd@nottingham.ac.uk

Abstract

This paper investigates a family of dam-break problems over an erodible bed. The hydrodynamics is described by the shallow water equations, and the bed change by a sediment-conservation equation, coupled to the hydrodynamics by a sediment transport (bed-load) law. When the initial states $\boldsymbol{U}_{l}$ and $\boldsymbol{U}_{r}$ are sufficiently close to each other the resulting solutions are consistent with the theory proposed by Lax (Hyperbolic Systems of Conservation Laws and the Mathematical Theory of Shock Waves, 1973, SIAM), that for a Riemann problem of $n$ equations there are $n$ waves associated with the $n$ characteristic families. However, for wet–dry dam-break problems over a mobile bed, there are three governing equations, but only two waves. One wave vanishes because of the presence of the dry bed. When initial left and right bed levels ( $B_{l}$ and $B_{r}$ ) are far apart, it is shown that a semi-characteristic shock may occur, which happens because, unlike in shallow water flow on a fixed bed, the flux function is non-convex. In these circumstances it is shown that it is necessary to reconsider the usual shock conditions. Instead, we propose an implied internal shock structure the concept of which originates from the fact that the stationary shock over a fixed-bed discontinuity can be regarded as a limiting case of flow over a sloping fixed bed. The Needham & Hey (Phil. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. A, vol. 334, 1991, pp. 25–53) approximation for the ambiguous integral term $\int \!h\,\text{d}B$ in the shock condition is improved based on this internal shock structure, such that mathematically valid solutions that incorporate a morphodynamic semi-characteristic shock are arrived at.

Information

Type
JFM Papers
Copyright
© 2017 Cambridge University Press 
Figure 0

Figure 1.Schematic diagram for a dam-break problem.

Figure 1

Figure 2.Wave structure for a Riemann problem with $n$ characteristic families.

Figure 2

Figure 3.Schematic diagrams depicting possible structures for the combination of a rarefaction wave and a semi-characteristic shock within a simple wave.

Figure 3

Figure 4.Bed level geometry for this case. $F=\hat{u} /\sqrt{g{\hat{h}}}$ is the Froude number. In these scenarios the whole flow is either sub- or supercritical.

Figure 4

Figure 5.Dimensionless characteristic velocities for our system with $\unicode[STIX]{x1D70E}=0.01$ (after Zhu & Dodd 2015, figure 2). $\unicode[STIX]{x1D706}_{+,-}$ are the equivalent hydrodynamic (fixed-bed) characteristic velocities.

Figure 5

Figure 6.Structure of the wave solution for a wet–dry dam-break problem ($h_{l}=1$, $u_{l}=0$, $B_{l}=0$, $h_{r}=0$, $u_{r}=0$ and $\unicode[STIX]{x1D70E}=0.01$) with varying $B_{r}$ values ($t=1$). All semi-characteristic shocks are solved by the $n$-step approach for (2.27)–(2.29) with $n=2$.

Figure 6

Figure 7.Illustrations of four of the Riemann solutions depicted in figure 6 in ($\unicode[STIX]{x1D706}/\sqrt{h},F$) space as the solution is traversed from $x_{l}$ to $x_{s}$. Dashed lines represent the jumps from $\unicode[STIX]{x1D706}_{1}$ wave and $\unicode[STIX]{x1D706}_{3}$ wave. Dash-dotted lines represent the jump at the semi-characteristic shocks. (f) Illustration of how $F$ varies across these solutions.

Figure 7

Figure 8.Illustrations of Riemann solutions for dam-break problems with $h_{l}=1$, $u_{l}=0$, $B_{l}=0$, $h_{r}=0$, $u_{r}=0$, $B_{r}=0.175$ and $\unicode[STIX]{x1D70E}=0.01$ in ($\unicode[STIX]{x1D706},F$) and ($\unicode[STIX]{x1D706},h$) space to indicate why a semi-characteristic shock must be fitted. Dashed lines represent the jumps from $\unicode[STIX]{x1D706}_{1}$ wave and $\unicode[STIX]{x1D706}_{3}$ wave. Dash-dotted lines represent the jump at the semi-characteristic shocks. All semi-characteristic shocks are solved by the $n$-step approach for (2.27)–(2.29) with $n=2$.

Figure 8

Figure 9.Solutions for dam-break problems with fixed upstream surface elevation ($h_{l}+B_{l}=1$) and downstream bed level ($B_{r}=0$) but varying $B_{l}$ values. All semi-characteristic shocks are solved by the $n$-step approach for (2.27)–(2.29) with $n=2$.

Figure 9

Figure 10.Structure of the wave solution for a wet–wet dam-break problem ($h_{l}=1$, $u_{l}=0$, $B_{l}=0$, $h_{r}=0.1$, $u_{r}=0$ and $\unicode[STIX]{x1D70E}=0.01$) with varying $B_{r}$ values at $t=1$. All semi-characteristic shocks are solved by the $n$-step approach for (2.27)–(2.29) with $n=2$.

Figure 10

Figure 11.Structure of the wave solution for a wet–wet Riemann problem with ($h_{l}=1$, $u_{l}=0$, $B_{l}=0$, $u_{r}=0$, $B_{r}=-0.4$ and $\unicode[STIX]{x1D70E}=0.01$) varying $h_{r}$ values.

Figure 11

Figure 12.$\int _{\tilde{B}_{L}}^{\tilde{B}_{R}}\tilde{h}\,\text{d}\tilde{B}$ plotted against size of bed step: $\int _{\tilde{B}_{L}}^{\tilde{B}_{R}}\tilde{h}\,\text{d}\tilde{B}=-[F_{L}^{2}(1/\tilde{h})+(1/2)\tilde{h}^{2}]_{L}^{R}$ calculated using (2.40) (solid black line); that approximated by (A 1), i.e. (2.30) (dashed line), by (A 2), i.e. (2.31) (dotted line) and by (A 3), i.e. (2.34) with $n=5$ (grey solid line) for various Froude numbers.

Figure 12

Figure 13.Comparison between wet–dry dam-break fixed bed ($h_{l}=1$, $u_{l}=0$, $B_{l}=0$, $h_{r}=0$, $u_{r}=0$ and $B_{r}=0$) solution ($\unicode[STIX]{x1D70E}=0$; solid lines) and nearly fixed-bed solution ($\unicode[STIX]{x1D70E}=1\times 10^{-5}$; dashed lines). All semi-characteristic shocks are solved with the NH91 approximation.

Figure 13

Figure 14.The comparison of wet–dry dam-break ($h_{L}=1$, $u_{L}=0$, $B_{L}=0$) solutions with different approximation methods for $\int _{B_{L}}^{B_{R}}h\,\text{d}B$. In the $n$-step approach in method (b) and (c), $n=2$.

Figure 14

Figure 15.The comparison of dam-break solutions with the NH91 approximation and those with the implied internal shock structure ($n$-step approach, for various $n$ values): (a–d) wet–dry dam-break solutions; (e–g) wet–wet dam-break solutions.

Figure 15

Figure 16.Structure of the wave solution (NH91 approximation) for a wet–dry dam-break problem with $B_{r}=-0.6$ which shows that the water on the two sides of the semi-characteristic shock is separated by the high bed step ($t=1$).

Figure 16

Figure 17.The characteristics set-up for the dam-break solutions with $B_{r}=-0.6$ with the NH91 approximation (a) and $n$-step approach applied for (2.27)–(2.29) ($n=2$; b).

Figure 17

Figure 18.Multivalued profile and semi-characteristic shock fitting with the NH91 approximation and $n$-step approach (2.34) for (2.27)–(2.29) in a wet–dry dam-break solution with $B_{r}=-0.6$.

Figure 18

Figure 19.Smooth flow on a constant slope from sub- to supercritical conditions.