Experimental Investigation of Pressure Load Exerted on a Downstream Dam by Dam-Break Flow
Publication: Journal of Hydraulic Engineering
Volume 140, Issue 2
Abstract
The failure of a natural or an artificial dam often leads to catastrophic flooding downstream. Studies have been conducted to investigate the mechanisms of single dam failure and the propagation of dam-break flood wave. However, little attention has been paid to the cascade failure of two or more sequential dams. In this article, consequences of a dam-break flood wave down a channel exerting pressure load on a downstream dam with different backwater effects were studied experimentally. Three typical flood patterns were observed for different downstream reservoir water depths. High precision pressure sensors were employed to measure the pressure load at different heights on the dam. Changes of the maximum pressure load were measured as the bed slope and the upstream and downstream reservoir water depths varied. An empirical formula was obtained by linear regression to predict the maximum pressure load. Additionally, a sinusoidal attenuation function was introduced to describe the time evolution of pressure load exerted on the downstream dam, and its parameters were determined using the measurement data in different cases.
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Acknowledgments
The study results presented here were supported by the National Program on Key Basic Research (Grant No. 2013CB035905), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 51209195), and the Program for New Century Excellent Talents in Universities of Ministry of Education of China (Grant No. NCET-10-0589).
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© 2014 American Society of Civil Engineers.
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Received: May 15, 2012
Published online: Feb 6, 2013
Accepted: Jun 4, 2013
Discussion open until: Jul 6, 2013
Published in print: Feb 1, 2014
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