Numerical study on characteristics of dam-break wave

The influence of the downstream water depth on dam-break wave is systematically and comparatively studied by simulating the physical experiments in this study. Commercial CFD software package FLOW-3D is chosen as the simulation tool and is validated firstly. Three experimental cases of different initial downstream water depth, including dry-bed case (r = 0), shallow downstream water case (r = 0.1) and deep downstream water case (r = 0.4) carried out by Ozmen-Cagatay and Kocaman (2010) are then simulated. The generation and propagation process of dam-break wave is divided into two and three stages, respectively, for dry-bed and wet-bed cases. And the characteristics of the dam-break wave including free surface profile, wave front velocity, mark point movement and trajectory, interface between upstream and downstream water, bottom resistance and turbulent kinetic energy are compared and analyzed elaborately in each stage for each case. The differences of the characteristics between different downstream water depth cases are achieved and the reasons of the differences are explored, which present a comprehensive understanding of dam-break wave generation and propagation.