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Discontinuous Galerkin Method for 1D Shallow Water Flows in Natural Rivers

Article  in  Engineering Applications of Computational Fluid Mechanics · March 2012

DOI: 10.1080/19942060.2012.11015404

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Discontinuous Galerkin Method for 1D Shallow Water

Flows in Natural Rivers
a a
W. Lai & A. A. Khan
a
Department of Civil Engineering, Clemson University, Lowry Hall, Clemson, SC
29634-0911, USA
Published online: 19 Nov 2014.

To cite this article: W. Lai & A. A. Khan (2012) Discontinuous Galerkin Method for 1D Shallow Water Flows in Natural
Rivers, Engineering Applications of Computational Fluid Mechanics, 6:1, 74-86, DOI: 10.1080/19942060.2012.11015404

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 Engineering Applications of Computational Fluid Mechanics Vol. 6, No. 1, pp. 74–86 (2012)

DISCONTINUOUS GALERKIN METHOD FOR 1D SHALLOW WATER

FLOWS IN NATURAL RIVERS
W. Lai and A. A. Khan *

Department of Civil Engineering, Clemson University, Lowry Hall, Clemson, SC 29634-0911, USA
* E-Mail: abdkhan@clemson.edu (Corresponding Author)

ABSTRACT: A numerical model is proposed for the solution of one-dimensional shallow water flow equations for
natural rivers. This model is based on the total variation diminishing Runge-Kutta discontinuous Galerkin finite
element method. In natural rivers, the cross-section shape and bed slope can be quite irregular, which requires a
compatible discretization scheme for the bed slope term and net pressure force term. Therefore, in this model, the
hydrostatic pressure force term and the wall pressure force term are combined and a new discretization for the
resulting term is introduced. This formulation is shown to prevent unphysical flow due to improper treatment of
bottom slope term. The mass and momentum flux term are calculated by HLL Riemann solver. A scheme is
presented to model flow over dry bed. To evaluate the numerical scheme, tests are conducted for idealized dambreak
problems in parabolic (with wet and dry beds), and rectangular channels, hydraulic jump in a rectangular channel,
dambreak in the Teton River (Idaho, USA) and the Toce River (Northern Alps, Italy), and flooding event in the East
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Fork River (Wyoming, USA). The comparison of the computational results with analytical and laboratory results of
dam break flows shows that the model is capable of handling flow over dry areas. The simulation results for
hydraulic jump show the discharge conservation property and shock prediction capability of the model. The
dambreak and flood simulations in natural channels show that the model is capable of handling flows in highly
varying bed topography and channel geometry.
Keywords: Runge-Kutta discontinuous Galerkin, total variation diminishing, shallow water flows, Saint-Venant
equations, natural rivers

1. INTRODUCTION many numerical schemes have been developed to

Numerical modeling of natural river flows is of
paramount importance in river management,
floodplain delineation, habitat assessment, water
supply, morphological changes, et cetera. Apart
from the one-dimensional schemes, two-
dimensional models have been extensively
developed and recently three-dimensional models
have become a viable tool for river flow modeling
(Tritthart and Cutknecht, 2007; Ying et al., 2009;
Erpicum et al., 2010). However, the 2D and 3D
models are computationally expensive and
detailed topographic information is required
(Catella et al., 2008). For practical applications,
the prediction of discharge and water level
profiles of unsteady flows along a river reach
would provide enough information for
engineering needs. Therefore, one-dimensional
models would remain a practical tool for
modeling natural river flows, especially for river
flow simulation over long reaches and for/during
extended times.
The governing equations for the one-dimensional
shallow water flows are represented well by the
Saint-Venant equations. Over recent decades,
solve the Saint-Venant equations (Capart et al.,
2003; Cattella et al., 2008). The difficulties in
modeling these equations come from the
treatment of convective flux and source terms
(Garcia-Navarro and Vázquez-Cendón, 2000).
More, careful treatment of the source terms of bed
elevation change and channel width change is
also required to preserve the conservative
property of the system (Nujić, 1995; Zhou et al.,
2001).
Since the shallow water flow equations are
hyperbolic, a discontinuous solution may be
generated even if the initial and boundary
conditions are smooth. To achieve accurate
approximations for the flux terms in solving
hyperbolic conservation laws, exact and various
approximate Riemann solvers can be utilized.
Godunov (1959) used the exact formulation of
Riemann problems to introduce a discontinuous
solution for the flux terms. Other methods include
Roe flux (Roe, 1981), HLL flux (Harten et al.,
1983), HLLE flux (Einfeldt, 1988), weighted
average flux method (Toro, 1989), and HLLC
flux (Toro et al., 1994). Rhebergen et al. (2008)
introduced a numerical flux (NCP-flux) for non-

Received: 12 Mar. 2011; Revised: 18 Jul. 2011; Accepted: 5 Sep. 2011

74
 Engineering Applications of Computational Fluid Mechanics Vol. 6, No.1 (2012)
conservative terms in the hyperbolic system of
equations. Improper treatment of source terms in
numerical modeling of Saint-Venant equations
may result in non-physical flow in the
computational domain. Several methods have
been proposed to appropriately model the source
term, for example, Nujić (1995), Garcia-Navarro
and Vázquez-Cendón (2000), Perthame et al.
(2001), Zhou et al. (2001), Ying et al. (2004), and
Catella et al. (2008).
In this paper, the Runge-Kutta discontinuous
Galerkin (RKDG) method is evaluated for
modeling flow in natural rivers. Reed and Hill
(1973) introduced the Runge-Kutta discontinuous
Galerkin method for the solution of neutron
transport equation. The method was further
developed by Cockburn et al. (1989 and 1990),
Cockburn and Shu (1989 and 1998) for solving
non-linear, time-dependent, hyperbolic equations.
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The RKDG method combines the advantages of
the finite volume method and the finite element
method and is ideally suited to handle convection-
dominated flows and shocks. The discontinuous
elements allow for easy implementation of inter-
element fluxes using Riemann solvers and slope
limiters. Each element is solved independently
and an element is connected to the surrounding
elements through boundary fluxes, thus the
method yields to an easy implementation of TVD
Runge-Kutta time integration scheme. For
discontinuous Galerkin method, the nodes
connecting the elements will have two values,
thus discontinuity can be resolved easily. As with
others schemes that are applied to convection
dominated flows, spurious oscillations may
appear in numerical solutions near discontinuities
and steep gradients and extra effort is required to
achieve smooth solutions. Non-Oscillatory
schemes, flux limiters, and slope limiters are the
most common methods for achieving smooth
solutions. Schwanenberg and Köngeter (2000)
and Kesserwani et al. (2008) applied the
discontinuous Galerkin method to solve the
shallow water equations using slope limiters.
Bokhove (2005) used HLLC flux with selective
slope limiting using the shock detection method
of Krivodonova et al. (2004) in the discontinuous
Galerkin method. Bokhove (2005) also presented
an Eulerian-Lagrangian approach to handle wet-
dry boundary, where the positivity of water depth
was guaranteed albeit under restricted time step.
Ern et al. (2008) applied discontinuous Galerkin
method using flux modification to preserve steady
state at rest and a slope modification to deal with
flooding and drying. Xing et al. (2010) used
discontinuous Galerkin method using the
75
positivity-preserving limiter to handle dry bed and
still water for shallow water flows.
In this paper, the total variation diminishing
Runge-Kutta discontinuous Galerkin method is
applied to solve the Saint-Venant equations. In
the studies cited above, the RKDG method was
applied to rectangular channels. In this study, the
RKDG method is used to model flow in natural
channels, where the hydrostatic pressure force and
the wall pressure force discretization has to be
compatible with that of the gravity force term,
otherwise bed slope generated unphysical flows
may occur. The net pressure force term, arising
from hydrostatic pressure force and wall pressure
force, is combined with the bed elevation slope
term. A new formulation is introduced for
discretization of this combined term that
guarantees elimination of non-physical flows due
to irregular bed for a horizontal water surface
under no flow condition. The mass and modified
momentum flux terms are evaluated by HLL flux
function. The wetting and drying is an essential
component of the natural river flow modeling. A
simple scheme is adapted to handle wetting and
drying. To test the model, it is first applied to
benchmark dambreak problems in rectangular and
parabolic channels with wet and dry bed
downstream of the original dam location. The
hydraulic jump is simulated with different
upstream Froude numbers and the results are
compared with the measured data. The scheme is
then used to simulate dambreak flow resulting
from Teton Dam failure, dambreak flow in the
Toce River, and a flood event in the East Fork
River.
2. SHALLOW WATER FLOW
EQUATIONS
The mass and momentum conservation equations
that form one-dimensional shallow water flow
equations for natural rivers with irregular cross
sections are given, respectively, below
A Q
 0 (1)
t x
Q (Q 2 / A) Z
   gA  gAS f (2)
t x x
In the equations described above, A is the cross
sectional flow area, Q is the flow rate, g is the
gravitational acceleration, and Z is the water
surface elevation. The water surface elevation is
the sum of the distance from the datum to the
lowest point in the channel cross section and the
 Engineering Applications of Computational Fluid Mechanics Vol. 6, No.1 (2012)

flow depth. The flow depth is measured from the

Z 2 Z3
lowest point in the channel cross section to the
Z1 Z3
water surface and must be determined from the Z 4
flow area considering the cross section geometry. Z 2
For horizontal, prismatic channel Z can be easily
replaced by A and the equation can be written in
conservation form. However, for natural channels, x
where cross section geometry is varying in
1 2 3 4
addition to bed slope, Z and A have a complex
relationship through flow depth. Fig. 1 Spatial discretization for discontinuous
In the momentum equation, the wall pressure elements.
force and the net hydrostatic pressure force terms
are combined with the weight term to obtain the sections. Further details can be found in Cockburn
first term on the right hand side (Cunge et al., (2001) and Li (2006) for convection-dominated
1980). When appropriately discretized, the hyperbolic equations. A typical spatial
momentum equation in the above form helps discretization for discontinuous elements is
prevent the unphysical bed slope generated flow. illustrated in Fig. 1. In an element, the variation of
That is, if the water in the channel with irregular area, discharge, and any other function, f , are
bed is at rest initially it will remain at rest. Nujić
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represented by nodal values and shape functions

(1995) reported that the accuracy of the numerical
scheme was dependent on the treatment of the or interpolating functions, N j , as given below
convective flux term. The treatment of the
convective flux and source terms will be given Aˆ  N j A j , Qˆ  N j Q j ,

 
later. In the momentum equation, the friction (6)
slope, S f , is given by and fˆ  A, Q   f Aˆ , Qˆ ,

n 2Q Q where  represents variation of A within an

Sf  , (3) element and A j is the value at node j.
R 4/3 A2
To apply the discontinuous Galerkin finite
where n is the Manning’s roughness coefficient element method to Eqs. (1) and (2), first the
and R is the hydraulic radius (ratio of flow area equations are multiplied by weight or test
to the wetted perimeter). functions Ni , taken to be the same as shape
The eigenvalues (  1 , 2 ) and eigenvectors ( k1 , functions N j in the Galerkin method. The
k 2 ) for the Saint-Venant equations are given, resulting mass and momentum equations are
respectively, by integrated over an element with boundary
[ xs , xe ] and after integration by parts the two
 1  Q A  gA b  u  c,
 equations, respectively, can be written as
 (4)
 2  Q A  gA b  u  c,  e Aˆ
x
 e Ni Qdx
x
 N dx   ˆ 
i
xs t xs x (7)
k  [1 , u  c]T ,
1
 (5) Ni ( xe ) P( xe )  Ni ( xs ) P( xs )  0
k 2  [1 , u  c]T ,

Qˆ  e Ni Qˆ 2
x x
where b is the width of the channel at the water  e
 Ni dx   dx 
t  xs x Aˆ
surface and c is the wave celerity.  xs
3. DISCONTINUOUS GALERKIN Ni ( xe )G ( xe )  Ni ( xs )G ( xs ) (8)
METHOD FORMULATION AND SOURCE x
TERM TREATMENT  e  ˆ gn 2Qˆ Qˆ 
 Z  dx,
  Ni  gA
ˆ 
A brief description of the RKDG method for the   x Rˆ 4 3 Aˆ 
shallow water equations is given in the following  xs  

76
 Engineering Applications of Computational Fluid Mechanics Vol. 6, No.1 (2012)

wave system. The HLL solver provides an

where P( x)  Q and G( x)  Q2 A are the
economical way to find the wave structure and
numerical fluxes for mass and momentum, evaluate intercell flux in general Riemann
respectively, at an element boundaries. problem (Fraccarollo and Toro, 1995). The wave
The water surface elevation term ( gA Z x ) speeds are calculated using a method suggested
represents a non-conservative term. Rhebergen et by Fraccarollo and Toro (1995). For the
al. (2008) implemented a technique to find weak conserved variables vector U  [ A, Q]T and the
formulation and boundary fluxes for the non-
corresponding boundary flux vector
conservative terms. The non-conservative
2 T T , the approximate
boundary fluxes were approximated using NCP- F  [Q, Q A]  [ P( x), G( x)]
flux as discussed earlier. An alternative method is numerical flux is given as
presented below to handle the non-conservative
term related to water surface gradient that F  for 0  S
L

 
produces a well-balanced scheme. Since linear
 S F  S F   S S U  U


 
elements are used, there are two test functions N1
hll -   R L L R
F U ,U   SR  SL
and N 2 . The water surface elevation gradient

term is discretized using the following expression for S L  0  S R ,
(see Fig. 1)  
F for 0  S R
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 ˆ ( A  Axe ) ( Z xe  Z xs )

 gN1 Aˆ Z   gN1 xs
(10)

 x 2 ( xe  xs )      
  S L  min  u  g  A / b  , u  c 
  ˆ ( Ax  Ax ) ( Z x  Z x )   
 gN 2 Aˆ
Z
  gN 2 s e e s  (11)
 x ( xe  xs )  S  max  u   g  A / b  , u  c 
 2
 R  
(9)  


where Ax and Ax are the values of A at the u 
1  
(u  u  )  g  A / b   g  A / b 

s s
2
boundary xs from the left and right elements and (12)
so on. A standard discontinuous Galerkin
discretization for the water surface elevation 1   1
gradient term results in an ill-balanced c  ( g  A / b   g  A / b  )  (u   u  )
2 4
formulation, where non-physical flows due to
(13)
irregular bed topography may be generated in
case of horizontal water surface with zero where F  F(U- ) and F  F(U ) . The wave
discharge (Kesserwani et al., 2010). The present
speeds to the left and right of an element
discretization scheme for the water surface
elevation gradient term will not produce non- boundary are given by S L and S R , respectively.
physical flows due to irregular bed topography. The velocities to the left and right of the element
 
That is, for a level water surface, the water boundary are given by u and u .
surface gradient term will vanish. With discharge In dry bed problems, the wave speeds for the dry
and water surface gradient being zero, all terms in bed to the right and left of the element under
Eqs. (7) and (8) except for the time derivatives consideration are given, respectively, by the
terms of area and discharge, respectively, will following equations
disappear. Hence, the still water level will be

maintained. The friction term in Eq. (8) is SL  u   g  A / b 
discretized using a standard finite element (14)
 
method. SR  u  2 g  A / b 


SL  u  2 g  A / b 
4. NUMERICAL FORMULATION
(15)
Some widely used approximate Riemann solvers  
SR  u  g  A / b 
have been discussed before. In this paper, the
HLL flux is adopted for the one dimensional two-

77
 Engineering Applications of Computational Fluid Mechanics Vol. 6, No.1 (2012)

For an initially dry bed, a sufficiently small depth,  j 1   j

hd (10-8 m), and zero velocity are defined at the b (19)
( x j 1, m  x j , m )
dry nodes (Ying et al., 2004). After every time
step the water depth in the whole domain is
checked. If the water depth at a node falls below ab  j 1   j 1
 . (20)
hd , then the water depth is set to hd and the flow 2 ( x j 1, m  x j 1, m )
rate is set to zero at that node.
For the flux at the element boundary, if the water 6. RUNGE-KUTTA TVD TIME
depth on one side is greater than hd and the water INTEGRATION
depth on the other side is less than or equal to hd ,
Former studies have shown that the TVD Runge-
then the left and right wave speeds are calculated Kutta time integration scheme should be one
based on Eq. 14 or 15. If water depth on both order higher than the order of the basis function
sides of the boundary is less than or equal to hd , used to achieve variation of a variable over an
the numerical flux in Eq. (10) would be zero since element (Cockburn et al., 1989; Cockburn and
the flow rate is zero, so the mass and momentum Shu, 1989; Cockburn et al., 1990). Since linear
flux is conserved. In this way, a positive water elements are used as basis function, the second
depth is provided and the dry element can be order TVD Runge-Kutta scheme is implemented
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evaluated with satisfactory accuracy. here. Eqs. (7) and (8) can be written in the
following general form
5. SLOPE LIMITER U
 L(U). (21)
Flux limiters and slope limiters are often applied t
in combination with TVD time integration To advance the solution from time step n to n+1,
scheme to achieve overall TVD property for the the second order TVD Runge-Kutta scheme, as
numerical scheme. Generally, the slope limiter is given by Gottlieb and Shu (1998), can be written
applied to the conserved variables, which in this as
case are the cross-section area, A , and the flow
rate, Q . The slope limiter in a general form for a
variable  in an element can be written as
U[1]  U n  tL U n ,
  
 (22)
 ( x)    ( x  xm ) for xs  x  xe , (16) 
1
2
1
2
1
U n 1  U n  U[1]  tL U[1] .
2
 
where  is the average value of a variable over For the explicit scheme adopted here, the
Courant-Friedrichs-Lewy condition must be
an element, xm is the midpoint of the element,
fulfilled and is given by
and  is a monotonized central slope limiter. The
variable  can be the cross section flow area or  t 
max   u  c  
1
(23)
the flow rate. The monotonized central slope  x  2 p 1
limiter (Li, 2006) for an element j can be written
as where p is the order of polynomial used for space
discretization (Cockburn, 2001).
j 
sign(a)  sign(b) min  a  b , 2 a , 2 b 
  7. NUMERICAL TESTS
2  2 
(17) Test 1: Idealized Dambreak in Parabolic Channel
The upwind slope a, the downwind slope b, and To examine the accuracy and shock capturing
the central slope (a+b)/2 are, respectively, given ability of the proposed model in a non-rectangular
by channel, the numerical scheme was first applied
to the idealized dam break problems in a
 j   j 1 parabolic channel. Dambreak tests with wet bed
a (18)
( x j , m  x j 1, m ) and dry bed downstream of the dam were
performed and computed results were compared
with analytic solutions (Henderson, 1966). The
test was conducted in a 1000 m long horizontal,

78
 Engineering Applications of Computational Fluid Mechanics Vol. 6, No.1 (2012)

60
frictionless, parabolic channel. The width of the Computed
parabolic channel was given by b=Z0.5. The dam 50 Exact

was located at the middle of the channel. The

40
water depth upstream of the dam was 10 m,

Q (m3/s)
downstream water depth was 1 m and zero for 30
wet bed and dry bed tests, respectively. Element
20
size of 1 m and time step of 0.005 s were used in
both tests. 10

Numerical solutions and analytical solutions of 0

0 200 400 600 800 1000
water surface and flow rate at 20 s after the x (m)
removal of the dam in both cases are shown in
Fig. 5 Computed and exact flow rate for dry bed
Figs. 2-5. Numerical results are in excellent dambreak in parabolic channel.
agreement with analytic solutions for both tests.
Dambreak test with wet bed shows the scheme is 0.08
Measured at 3.75s
capable to capture the shock wave. While the dry 0.07 Measured at 9.40s
Simulated at 3.75s
bed test demonstrates suitability of the model to 0.06 Simulated at 9.40s
simulate flow over an initially dry bed. 0.05

Z (m)
12 0.04
Computed
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10 0.03
Exact
0.02
8
0.01
Z (m)

6 0
0 5 10 15 20
x (m)
4
Fig. 6 Computed and measured water surface at 3.75
2
s and 9.40 s.
0
0 200 400 600 800 1000
x (m) Test 2: Dambreak in Rectangular Flume
Fig. 2 Computed and exact water surface for wet In this test, the model was applied to a dambreak
bed dambreak in parabolic channel. problem in a rectangular, horizontal flume for
60
which measured water surface profiles after the
Computed dambreak event were available (Schoklitsch,
50 Exact
1917). The flume was 0.096 m wide, 0.08 m high,
40 and 20 m long. The dam was located at the
Q (m3/s)

middle of the flume, with water ponded to a

30
height of 0.074 m upstream of the dam and a dry
20 bed downstream. The flume was made of smooth
wood, and the Manning’s roughness coefficient of
10
0.009 s/m1/3 was used in the simulation. The
0
0 200 400 600 800 1000 removal of the dam was assumed instantaneous,
x (m)
and the water flow after the dam removal was
Fig. 3 Computed and exact flow rate for wet bed simulated. Element size of 0.1 m and time step of
dambreak in parabolic channel. 0.0001 s were used in this test.
Fig. 6 shows the computed water surface profiles
12
with measured data at 3.75 seconds and 9.40
Computed
10
Exact seconds after the removal of the dam. The
8
computed water surface profiles are in good
agreement with the measured profiles. The results
Z (m)

6 show that the scheme is capable of modeling the

4 progressive wave after the dam removal over an
initially dry bed with friction.
2
Test 3: Hydraulic Jump in Rectangular Channel
0
0 200 400 600 800 1000
x (m) Gharangik and Chaudhry (1991) undertook
Fig. 4 Computed and exact water surface for dry bed physical model study to measure water surface
dambreak in parabolic channel. profiles of hydraulic jumps for various upstream

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 Engineering Applications of Computational Fluid Mechanics Vol. 6, No.1 (2012)

0.3
the jumps are observed in the discharge and may
0.25 be due to the breakdown of the hydrostatic
pressure assumption. Overall, the scheme is
0.2
capable to model hydraulic jump accurately in
Z (m)

0.15 terms of its location and water surface profile.

Measured
0.1
Test a Test 4: Teton Dam Failure
Measured
Test b
0.05
The one-dimensional numerical model was
applied to model the Teton dam failure that took
0 2 4 6
x (m)
8 10 12 14 place on June 5, 1976. The Teton dam was a
92.96 m (305 feet) high earth-fill dam with a
Fig. 7 Computed and measured water surface 914.4 m (3000 feet) long crest located on the
profiles for hydraulic jumps. Teton River in southeastern Idaho. The inundated
0.1 area after the dambreak is shown in Fig. 9. River
Test a cross sections, Manning’s roughness coefficient,
Test b
0.08 reservoir storage depletion, and the flow rate at
the dam site were documented by the U.S.
Q (m3/s)

0.06
Geological Survey (Ray and Kjelstrom, 1976).
The flooded area and measured cross sections,
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0.04
shown as straight lines across the river, are shown
0.02
in Fig. 9. The cross sections used in the
computation were interpolated from the available
0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14
data. The discharge at the dam site is shown in
x (m) Fig. 10. The dam site discharge and water surface
Fig. 8 Computed flow rate variation for hydraulic level were used as inflow boundary conditions,
jumps. corresponding to the supercritical inflow
condition. Since the initial flow conditions before
and downstream boundary conditions. The study the dambreak were not specified, a downstream
was conducted in a 14 m long and 0.46 m wide dry bed was assumed as an initial condition for
rectangular, horizontal flume. Two cases (labeled simulation. In addition, inflows from Henry’s
as ‘a’ and ‘b’) were selected to validate the Fork and Snake River were ignored as these
current model. For the cases ‘a’ and ‘b’, the inflows were small compared to the large flood
upstream velocities were 3.831 m/s and 1.826 event. The simulation ended at 10 hours after the
m/s, the upstream depths were 0.031 m and 0.064 dambreak.
m, and downstream depths were 0.265 m and Teton Dam

0.168 m, respectively. These conditions

correspond to upstream Froude numbers of 6.947
and 2.305, and downstream Froude numbers of
Sugar City
0.278 and 0.542, respectively. The given
Menan Buttes
discharge and upstream water depth were used as Rexburg

upstream boundary conditions (compatible with

supercritical flow at the upstream end of the N
Snake River
channel). At the downstream end, the water depth
maintained in the physical model at the end of the
channel was used as a boundary condition. The
initial condition for the water surface was set by 0 5 10 km

linearly varying the water depth between the inlet

and outlet. The Manning’s roughness coefficient
was set to 0.008 s/m1/3.
The final computed water surface and flow rate
for the two cases are shown in Figs. 7 and 8. Idaho Falls

Element size of 0.1 m and time step of 0.002 s

were used in this test. Fig. 7 shows that the
locations and water surface profiles for the two
hydraulic jumps are predicted accurately by the
model. In Fig. 8, small oscillations at the toe of Fig. 9 Flood area downstream of Teton River.

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 Engineering Applications of Computational Fluid Mechanics Vol. 6, No.1 (2012)

8
10
Measured
Discharge 1600 Computed
Bottom
7
1550

Max Z (m)
10
Q (m3/s)

1500
6
10
1450

5
10 1400
Frame 001  26 Apr 2011  0
0 2 4 6 8 10 0 20 40 60 80 100
Time (hr) x (km)

Fig.10 Discharge at the dam site after dambreak. Fig. 13 Maximum water elevation during the flood
event.
1550
Water surface
Bottom

+P26
1500 +P1
+P5 +P21
+P18
Z (m)
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1450
Fig. 14 Plan view of Toce River topography.

1400
Test 5: Toce River Case
0 20 40 60 80 100
x (km)
A physical model at 1:100 scale of a reach of the
Fig. 11 Water surface along the river at 10 hours after Toce River valley (Northern Alps, Italy) was
dambreak. developed at the ENEL-HYDRO laboratory in
Milan, Italy. The physical model tests were used
2.5
in the CADAM project (Frazão and Testa, 1999).
2
Modeling parameters, such as topographic data,
inflow hydrograph, and Manning’s coefficient,
1.5 were specified by Electricité de France (EDF).
Results of the physical model were also provided
Fr

1 so that modelers could make an objective

0.5
0
0 20 40 60
x (km)
Fig. 12 Froude number along the river at 10 hours
after dambreak.
Fig. 11 and 12 show the computed water surface
and Froude number, respectively, at 10 hours
after the dam break. Fig. 13 shows the maximum
water surface during the flood event along the
river. As shown in Fig. 11, the water surface
exhibits large variation in the study reach. In Fig.
13, the computed maximum water surface
elevation along the river reach compares well
with the measured data. The difference between
the computed result and the measured data in the
middle of the river (30-50 km) is mainly due to
neglect of the side flow from the Snake River.
The results demonstrate that the numerical
scheme is capable of modeling dambreak
problems in natural rivers and can provide
satisfactory results.
comparison of their numerical modeling results.
The topography of Toce River physical model is
shown in Fig. 14. The physical model covered an
80 100
area of approximately 50 m × 12 m. To measure
the water surface level, 32 water level gauges
were installed in the physical model. Selected
gauges along the main river axis (P1, P5, P18,
P21, and P26) were used for comparing the
simulated results with the measured data. For
simulation, 62 cross-sections were used. These
cross-sections are shown in Fig.15. The elements
used in the computation domain were of non-
uniform size and the length of the element varied
from 0.25 m to 1.94 m.
A rectangular tank was located at the upstream
(left) end of the physical model. Discharge from
the rectangular tank was used as an inflow
boundary condition during numerical calculation.
The inflow hydrograph at the rectangular tank is
shown in Fig. 16. The flow conditions at the inlet
and outlet ends of the physical model were forced
to be critical and the same conditions were
applied in the computation. The channel
downstream of the tank was initially dry.

81
 Engineering Applications of Computational Fluid Mechanics Vol. 6, No.1 (2012)

12 2

10
P26

8
P1
y (m)

Fr
6 P5 P21 1
P18

0 0
0 10 20 30 40 50 0 10 20 30 40 50
x (m) Distance (m)

Fig. 15 Locations of computational crosssections of Fig. 18 Computed Froude number along the river at
Toce River. time=100s.
8
Discharge

0.2
7.5

Max Z (m)
Q (m3/s)

7
0.1 Computed
Physical model
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ISIS model
6.5
Bottom

0 6
0 60 120 180 0 10 20 30 40 50
Time (s) x (m)

Fig. 16 Inflow boundary conditions at the river inlet. Fig. 19 Computed maximum water level of Toce
River.
7.8
Water Surface
7.6 Bottom Coare mesh
7.8 Fine mesh
7.4 Measured
P1
Z (m)

7.5
7.2 P5
Z (m)

P18
7 7.2 P21

6.8
6.6
0 10 20
Distance (m)
Fig. 17 Computed water surface profile at time=100s.
The value of Manning’s roughness coefficient
was taken to be 0.0162s/m1/3 based on the value
proposed in the physical model study. The
numerical simulation ended at 180 seconds. The
computed water surface and Froude number at
100 seconds are shown in Figs. 17 and 18,
respectively. The predicted water surface level, as
displayed in Fig. 17, shows a lot of variation due
to bed slope and channel width changes. Several
hydraulic jumps can be identified as confirmed by
the Froude number variation along the channel
shown in Fig. 18.
The computed results of maximum water level are
plotted along with measured data from the
physical model study and results from ISIS model
in Fig. 19. The ISIS model was based on the finite
difference Preissmann implicit scheme (Rosu and
Ahmed, 1999). The computed results of
maximum water level, as shown in Fig. 18, are in
6.9
P26
30 40 50
6.6
0 60 120 180
Time (s)
Fig. 20 Computed and measured stage-time
hydrographs.
good agreement with the physical model
measurement. The root-mean-square error
(RMSE) is 0.0473 m between ISIS model and
measured data and is 0.0347 m between present
model and measured data. The present model
provides better results than the ISIS model at the
downstream end of the river.
Fig. 20 shows a comparison of computed stage-
time hydrographs with the measured data at five
gauge points. Besides the coarse mesh in Fig. 15,
a refined mesh, with four elements added between
every cross section, was used to investigate effect
of mesh size. The difference in the water surface
level between the coarse and refined mesh is more
pronounced at the downstream stations (P21 and
P26), with the refined mesh providing better
comparison with the measured data. For the

82
 Engineering Applications of Computational Fluid Mechanics Vol. 6, No.1 (2012)
refined mesh, the arrival time of the surge and the
variation of water surface elevation with time
show good agreement with the measured data.
Test 6: East Fork River Case
In this test, the numerical scheme is used to model
a flood event in the East Fork River, Wyoming.
The East Fork River flows in the Wind River
Range of Wyoming, west of the Continental
Divide and east and southeast of Mt. Bonneville.
The study reach configuration is shown in Fig.21.
The meandering study reach is approximately 3.3
km in length and terminates downstream at a
bedload trap constructed across the river. The
number shown at each cross section in the figure
is the centerline distance (in meters) upstream
from the bedload trap (section 0000). Bed
elevation at 39 cross sections were measured
daily during a month-long period (Meade et al.,
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1980).The influence of the sediment transport and
changes of channel bed (due to short simulation
period) are not considered in this test.
The simulation period of the river flow was 12
days from June 1 to June 12, 1979. The hourly
discharge measured at section 3295 was used as
the inflow boundary condition (Emmett et al.,
1980), while the hourly gage height at section
0000 was used as outflow boundary condition.
Subcritical flow condition existed at the inflow
and outflow boundary and the boundary
conditions used in the model reflected that fact.
Fig. 21 Map of the 3.3 km study reach in the East
Fork River (Emmett et al., 1980).
83
The average water depth on June 1 was used as
initial depth, while the initial flow rate was set to
be 6.0 m3/s throughout the study reach. Since
value of roughness coefficient is unavailable, the
Manning’s roughness coefficient was varied to
find the appropriate value.
The computed and measured water surface at
sections 2505 and section 3295 are shown in Fig.
22. The computed and measured discharges at
section 0000 are shown in Fig. 23. In Fig. 24, the
computed water surface at noon on June 12, 1979
is compared with the measured water surface for
different values of Manning’s roughness
coefficient. Results show that Manning’s
roughness coefficient of 0.028 s/m1/3 provides
results that are in agreement with measured data.
In general, increase in roughness will increase
water surface and vice versa. For the Manning’s
roughness coefficient of 0.028 s/m1/3, the
difference in the measured and computed water
surface elevation and discharge values at the
beginning is mostly due to the uncertainty in the
initial conditions, the difference during the last
four days may originate from the higher sediment
transport within the reach. In general, the
numerical results with Manning’s roughness
coefficient of 0.028 s/m1/3 are in good agreement
with the measured data and the test demonstrates
that the model is capable of simulating flood flow
in natural rivers.
9
n=0.028
Measured
Z (m)
7
0 2 4 6 8 10 12
Time (Day)
Fig. 22 Computed and measured water surface at
section 3295 and section 2505 (lower lines).
20
n=0.028
Measured
15
Q (m3/s)
10
0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12
Time (Day)
Fig. 23 Computed and measured discharge at section
0000.
 Engineering Applications of Computational Fluid Mechanics Vol. 6, No.1 (2012)
9
n=0.035
n=0.028
8
n=0.020
7
Measured
Bed
Z (m)
6
5 Hydraulic Engineering 134(6):736-748.
4
3
0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500
Distance (m)
Fig. 24 Computed and measured water surface around
noon June 12, 1979.
8. CONCLUSIONS
A numerical model based on discontinuous
Galerkin method is developed to solve one-
dimensional shallow water equations for natural
rivers. The Saint-Venant equations are modified
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by combining the pressure force and bed
elevation change terms. The treatment of the
combined term to account for the momentum flux
is given. The inter-element flux terms are
approximated using HLL flux. The total variation
diminishing (TVD) property is achieved by TVD
time integration and TVD slope limiters. The
numerical scheme is evaluated by simulating dam
break problems in rectangular and non-
rectangular channels for dry bed and wet bed
downstream of the dam and hydraulic jumps in a
rectangular channel. The numerical scheme is
then applied to simulate flow in Teton River,
Toce River, and East Fork River. These test cases
show that the numerical scheme is capable of
modeling both sudden dambreak type of flows
and natural floods in natural channels. The results
show that the discharge, water surface level, and
surge arrival time are accurately predicted using
the developed scheme. In addition, the numerical
scheme is capable of simulating flow over an
initial dry bed in natural channels. The highly
varying bed topography and channel cross section
shapes, which are normal features of natural
channels, can be handled with ease.
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