Development of a Three-Dimensional Unstructured Mesh Finite-Element Model for Flood Propagation
Publication: Journal of Hydraulic Engineering
Volume 143, Issue 10
Abstract
In this paper, a three-dimensional (3D) finite-element model for flooding has been developed, which can be applied to different types of flooding. The theoretical methodology has been introduced in details. The new model has been tested with an idealized case and the Thacker test case, then validated by a tsunami-caused coastal flooding experiment. The advantages of the new flooding model developed in this paper over existing ones are (1) the use of unstructured meshes that makes it possible to obtain more detailed information about local flow structures close to isolated objects and long linear objects; (2) the 3D modeling ability that provides increased accuracy where vertical inertia is important; (3) the use of a wetting and drying (WD) method that allows the free-surface height to be treated with a high level of implicitness and stability, allowing relatively large time steps to be used; and (4) control of the conditioning of the resulting matrix equations in high-aspect ratio domains.
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Acknowledgments
This work was carried out under funding from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 51609165), the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (No. 2016M591389), and the Foundation of State Key Laboratory of Hydraulic Engineering Simulation and Safety (Tianjin University, No. HESS-1607). The authors would like to thank Prof. Christopher Pain, Dr. Fangxin Fang, Prof. Čedo. Maksimović, Prof. Ionel M. Navon, and Dr. Alexandros Avdis for providing advice and help in this research. Ting Zhang would like to acknowledge the support of the China Scholarship Council and the help from S. Mouradian, S. W. Funke, A. Candy, F. Milthaler, M. Goffin, C. T. Jacobs and others from AMCG at Imperial College London.
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Published In
Journal of Hydraulic Engineering
Volume 143 • Issue 10 • October 2017
Copyright
©2017 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Oct 28, 2015
Accepted: Apr 18, 2017
Published online: Jul 22, 2017
Published in print: Oct 1, 2017
Discussion open until: Dec 22, 2017
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