POSITIVE FRONT OF DAMBREAK WAVE ON ROUGH BOTTOM

FRANK BLASER 1, WILLI H. HAGER 2

VAW, ETH-Zentrum , CH-8092 Zurich , Switzerland Tel.: +411 632 4104 , Fax: +411 632 1192 e-mail blaser@vaw.baum.ethz.ch

VAW, ETH-Zentrum , CH-8092 Zurich , Switzerland Tel.: +411 632 4149 , Fax: +411 632 1192 hager@vaw.baum.ethz.ch

ABSTRACT Experimental data obtained at the Laboratory of Hydraulics, Hydrology and Glaciology (VAW) of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology at Zurich (ETHZ) are presented for wave fronts on three different bottom slopes from horizontal up to 50%. The geometry of the straight channel is rectangular and turbulent flow on a rough and initially dry bottom was considered. The experiments were compared with mathematical results optained by Dressler (1952) for the horizontal channel. Furthermore the theory of Lauber (1997) for the propagation of the positive wave front on the smooth bottom was adapted to the rough channel bottom and compared with experimental data obtained for the sloping channel.

Keywords: Dambreak wave, positive wave front, rough bottom, scale effects

INTRODUCTION In this investigation the most simple geometrical configuration was considered. The water body upstream of a vertical gate is so quickly released that no effect of the gate opening time appears on the resulting unsteady

dambreak flow. The experiments were conducted in a rectangular prismatic channel with constant bottom slope and bottom roughness. This twodimensional flow is therefore referred to as the classical dambreak wave. Ritter was the first to present a solution for this problem in 1892, and it is well known that his theoretical result fails to describe the effect of bottom slope, and the flow features due to friction. The flow under consideration idealizes the hydraulics after complete, rapid failure of a dam. The conditions described are an abstraction of the natural processes where the cross-sectional area, the bottom slope and also the friction characteristics usually vary along a valley downstream of the dam. Moreover, the dam rupture may be incomplete and the failure can proceed slowly in case of the break of an embankment dam. The idealized configuration allows to study the influence of certain basic parameters independently of others. Therefore, the resulting experimental data aim to serve as a basis for validation of numerical simulations. A detailed review of experimental contributions on the dambreak wave reveals only few reliable contributions to the front development on rough boundaries (Hager and Lauber 1996). One of those few reliable contributions is the investigation of the U.S. Army Engineer Waterways Experiment Station (US Corps of Engineers 1961). The experiments were conducted in a slightly sloping channel and could therefore not be compared with the predictions of Dressler (1952) on the propagation of the positive wave front on an initially dry, rough and horizontal bottom. Besides the effect of resistance, the effect of bottom slope has not yet been considered. Until now no theoretical analysis on the propagation of the positive wave front on a rough, sloping channel is available. The present project aims to answer the following questions, therefore: How fast does the wave front propagate on a rough bottom and what is its corresponding time-location?, Can the Froude similarity law be applied where hydraulic resistance plays an important role?, and What is the effect of bottom slope on the propagation of the positive wave front?

EXPERIMENTS The experiments were conducted in a 500mm wide and 14m long channel whose bottom slope could be varied between 0 and 50%. 3m downstream from the upper channel end, a vertical plane gate without gate slots was installed. The artificial roughness added to the bottom of the channel consisted of an industrial carpet made of rubber with transverse triangularshaped rills of an average height of 1.2mm. From preliminary observations

conducted with steady flow at another test facility, an equivalent roughness height was determined, i.e. about twice the height of the protuberance (Hager and Blaser 1998). In all experiments the downstream channel was completely dry prior to experimentation, and positive dambreak waves on a dry downstream bottom were exclusively considered. The relevant relative roughness depending on the initial depth of flow could be varied by choosing different initial water depths from 200mm up to 600mm upstream of the gate location. The minimum initial water depth for which effects of viscosity on the front propagation characteristics could be neglected within the downstream channel length considered was at least 150mm (Fig. 1a).

Fig. 1 Effects of a) viscosity and b) gate opening time positive wave front.

on propagation of

Comparisons of the positive wave front for initial water depths larger than the lower minimum indicated agreement when scaled according to Froude similarity. Nondimensional location and nondimensional time initial flow depth as the scaling length. , nondimensional flow depth involve thus exclusively the

The vertical gate was driven by pressurized air and could be accelerated up to 4g, but effects of the gate opening time on the positive wave front disappeared for an acceleration larger than 1.4g, correspondimg to a dimensionless opening time 1.5 for (Fig. 1.b).

A detailed analysis of the experimental data shows that flows on the smooth boundary ( ) were essentially in the turbulent smooth regime. In

contrary, they were in the turbulent rough regime on the artificially roughened boundary ( ) and not viscosity-dominated, therefore. Due to high turbulence on the rough boundary the tip region was aerated while it was unaerated on the smooth bottom (Fig. 2).

a)

b)

Fig. 2 View of wave front at dimensionless location channel ( )

in horizontal

Wave front propagating on a) smooth bottom is non-aerated and b) rough bottom is aerated due to intensive turbulence at tip region.

WAVE FRONT VELOCITY From detailed observations close to the breach section two positive wave portions may be identified (Lauber 1997): (1) The so-called Initial wave (subscript I) with a propagation velocity , and (2) the so-called

Dynamic wave (subscript D) with . The initial wave results essentially from orifice flow and is strongly affected by streamline curvature, so that the shallow water equations are not applicable. At the initial wave is overtaken by the faster dynamic wave. The phase with the initial wave is excluded hereafter. The time origin of the dynamic wave is corresponding to the time of free fall of the surface point at the gate section until reaching the channel bottom. The De Saint-Venant equations are adequate for modeling the positive wave characteristic as

, (1) where x is the downstream coordinate with the origin at the gate section, the bottom slope and

, (2) the friction slope with as the resistance coefficient and the hydraulic radius for shallow water flow. Integrating Eq.(2) subject to the initial condition gives (Lauber 1997) . (3) As the wave front moves comparable to a solid body the friction slope is

, (4) where is the characteristic, slope-independent wave front height (Fig. 4c). For turbulent smooth flow was obtained, and applied for turbulent rough flows with . While Lauber (1997) characterized the friction coefficient for the smooth bottom with a Blasius type resistance factor, the present flow on the rough bottom follows a Prandtl type resistance equation as

. (5) Inserting (4) into (3) and solving the quadratic equation gives

, (6) where and (Fig. 3a).

Fig. 3 Front velocity for dambreak wave on horizontal channel(---) Observations compared with a) (-) Eq.(6). b) Dressler's theory for friction coefficients between 0.0039 and 0.0064 (flow-depth-dependent).

WAVE FRONT LOCATION

HORIZONTAL CHANNEL The location of the positive wave front is determined by integrating the

front velocity over time-period T. For the horizontal channel the wave front location obtains (Lauber 1997)

(7) in agreement with the experiments (Fig. 4a).

Fig. 4 Positive wave front location and free surface profiles for (-) Positive wave front propagation on rough bottom compared with a) (-) Eq.(7) and (---) smooth bottom, b) (-) Dressler's theory. c) Free surface profiles for the wave propagating on (-) rough and (---) smooth bottom and their corresponding characteristic, slope-independent front heights.

SLOPING CHANNEL For the sloping channel ( in setting the initial condition by ) the integration of Eq. (6) yields a singularity . Alternatively Eq. (6) is replaced

, (8) approximating Eq. (6) for (Lauber 1997). Integration gives

(9) and agreement with experiments for and is noted (Fig. 5).

Fig. 5 Positive wave front location

for sloping channel

Positive wave front propagation on (---) smooth and (-) rough bottoms. (-) Eq. (9) for a) , b) .

CONCLUSIONS The positive front of a dambreak wave propagating on a positively sloping rough bottom is described. Using the characteristic form of the De SaintVenant equations the front velocity and the positive front location are determined. These expressions are in agreement with experiments conducted for three different slopes in which scale effects are excluded.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS We would like to acknowledge the financial support of the Swiss National Science Foundation for this project, grant number 21-46802.96.

REFERENCES ? Dressler, R. (1952). Hydraulic resistance effect upon the dam-break functions. Journal of Research 49(3): 217-225. ? Hager, W.H., Blaser, F. (1998). Drawdown curve and incipient aeration for chute flow. Canadian Journal of Civil Engineers 25(3): 467-473. ? Hager, W.H., Lauber, G. (1996). Hydraulische Experimente zum Talsperrenbruchproblem (Experiments to dambreak problem). Schweizer Ingenieur und Architekt 114(24): 515-524.

? Lauber, G. (1997). Experimente zur Talsperrenbruchwelle im glatten geneigten Rechteckkanal (Experiments on dambreak waves). PhD Thesis 12115. Swiss Federal Institute of Technology ETH: Zurich, Switzerland. ? US Corps of Engineers (1961). Floods resulting from suddenly breached dams. Miscellaneous Paper 2 (374), Report 2. US Army Engineer Waterways Experiment Station, Corps of Engineers: Vicksburg, Mississippi.