Abstract

A dam break wave caused by the discontinuity in depth and velocity of a flow is resulted from instantaneous release a body of water from a channel and classified naturally as a rapidly varied unsteady flow. Due to its nature, it is hard to be accurately represented by analytical models. The aim of this study is to establish the modelling differences and complexity echelons between analytically simulated explicit laminar and turbulent dry bed dam break wave free surface profiles. An in-depth solution to the free surface profile has been provided and evaluated by representing the reported dam break flow measurements at various locations. The methodology adopted utilizes the free surface profile formulations presented by Chanson1,2, which are developed using the method of characteristics. In order to validate the results of the presented analytical models in illustrating the dam break wave under dry bed conditions, published experimental data provided by Schoklitsch3, Debiane4 and Dressler5 are used to compare and analyze the performance of the dam break waves under laminar and turbulent flow conditions.

Keywords

laminar model, turbulent model, free surface profile, open channel flow, dam break wave, dry bed, method of characteristics