SPH simulation of free surface flow over a sharp-crested weir

In this paper the numerical simulation of a free surface flow over a sharp-crested weir is presented. Since in this case the usual shallow water assumptions are not satisfied, we propose to solve the problem using the full weakly compressible Navier–Stokes equations with the Tait equation of state for water. The numerical method used consists of the new meshless Smooth Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) formulation proposed by Ferrari et al. (2009) [8], that accurately tracks the free surface profile and provides monotone pressure fields. Thus, the unsteady evolution of the complex moving material interface (free surface) can been properly solved. The simulations involving about half a million of fluid particles have been run in parallel on two of the most powerful High Performance Computing (HPC) facilities in Europe. The validation of the results has been carried out analysing the pressure field and comparing the free surface profiles obtained with the SPH scheme with experimental measurements available in literature [18]. A very good quantitative agreement has been obtained.