Conditions for peak pressure stability in VOF simulations of dam break flow impact

• Navier–Stokes VOF modeling of dam break impact.
• With free-slip bottom boundary condition, existence of peak pressure divergence in stagnation point area.
• Problem due to bore tip interface steepening with increasing resolution.
• Problem solved when the boundary layer is properly described with a turbulence model.

This work addresses the problem of numerical simulation of the dynamic loads generated during a dry dam break flow impact on a wall. The numerical model used is the multi-fluid Navier–Stokes Volume Of Fluid (VOF) model THETIS. The results are compared with two experiments allowing pressure evolution validation at two relative positions on the wall. A first analysis of the results shows the large spatial and temporal variability of the pressure field after impact, highlighting the need for extreme care when performing measurements. When using first a free-slip boundary conditions on the bottom, the computed pressure peaks are found to behave differently depending on the distance to the stagnation point. Above a certain position, which is determined in the paper, computed peak pressures are stable with resolution while under this position, a divergent behavior is observed. This divergence is attributed to the shape of the bore tip which is poorly resolved with our model when a free-slip condition is used. This is confirmed by showing that starting from an identical free surface profile right before impact, the pressure peaks are convergent. The pressure peak instability problem can be solved by resolving the boundary layer structure with a suitable model (in our paper a v2−fv2−f RANS model) but this requires much more CPU resources.