Proceedings of 2013 IAHR World Congress

The Gate Removal Effect in the Initial Instants of the Dam-break

Flow

Rui Aleixo
Visiting Researcher, National Center for Computational Hydrosciences Engineering, University of
Mississippi, USA. Email: rui.aleixo@ncche.olemiss.edu
Sandra Soares-Frazão
Associate Professor, Université catholique de Louvain, Place du Levant 1, B1348 Louvain-la-Neuve,
Belgium. Email: sandra.soares-frazao@uclouvain.be
Mustafa Altinakar
Director, National Center for Computational Hydrosciences Engineering, University of Mississippi, USA.
Email: altinakar@ncche.olemiss.edu
Yves Zech
Emeritus and invited professor, Université catholique de Louvain, Place du Levant 1, B1348
Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium. Email: yves.zech@uclouvain.be

ABSTRACT: In dam-break flow experiments, the instantaneous dam-break is usually modeled by a

moving gate whose removal time has to be small enough to not disturb significantly the flow in the initial
instants. The gate motion direction, up or downward, is also an important parameter that will affect the
initial instants of the dam-break flow propagation. In this paper an analysis of the gate removal effect in
the initial instants of the dam-break flow is made considering two different initial water heights. By
analyzing the water column behavior immediately after the dam-break, a new criterion for downward
moving gates is presented. Finally, the analysis of the gate opening by imaging methods allowed also for
a time resolved analysis of the velocity field in the initial instants of the dam-break flow for the two tested
conditions.

KEY WORDS: Dam-break, Initial stages, Water column, Gate effect, Image analysis.

1 INTRODUCTION
Despite the many important advances in the numerical modeling of dam-break flows in the last years,
the physical modeling of dam-break flows is still an active and important field of research. Nowadays
with imaging techniques it is possible to measure not only the wave celerity and water level time
evolution but also the point-wise velocity field (Aleixo et al. 2011, Aleixo, 2011, Oertel and Bung, 2012).
These studies do contribute for a more detailed comprehension of the dam-break flow and are an
important source of information that can be used to improve existing numerical models. For the physical
modeling of the dam-break flow it is required to have a consistent physical model of the dam break itself.
This is usually modeled by a considering a moving gate in a prismatic channel, which is suddenly
removed thus releasing the water stored in the reservoir as indicated in Figure 1 a). The gate removal is
often considered to be instantaneous because it is considered the most drastic case and to be in agreement
with the Ritter (1892) hypotheses.
The present paper has two main objectives the first is the analysis of the gate removal effect in the
initial instants of the dam break flow; the second one is to analyze the applicability of an existing criterion
to the case downward moving gates. The gate removal process is important since it will influence the first
stages of the flow. Here the analysis of an instantaneous gate removal is considered for a pure
hydrodynamic dam-break flow, that is, a dam-break flow without moving sediments.
In the literature different strategies can be found in order to simulate an instantaneous dam break.
Probably the most used method relies on the fast vertical displacement of a gate. This vertical
displacement can be downward or upward as represented in Figure 1 b) and c) respectively. Upward
moving gates were used by Dressler (1952), Estrade (1967), Stansby et al. (1998), Lauber and Hager
(1998), Bukreev and Gusev (2005), Khankandi et al. (2012). Downward moving gates have been used by
Spinewine and Zech (2007), Aleixo (2013). The advantages and disadvantages of these two strategies are
resumed in Table 1.

a) b) wg c)

h0 h0 Q
h0
Q

wg
Figure 1 a) Scheme of a dam with initial height, h0; b) downward moving gate; c) upward moving gate. Q denotes
the flow rate after the gate opening and wg the gate vertical velocity.

When analyzing the gate removal, these two strategies (downward vs. upward moving gates) will
influence the flow in a different way. It is known from the Ritter theory that at the dam section the
non-dimensional water level is Z = z/h0 = 4/9. Therefore removing a gate upwards has the advantage that
after the gate reaches z = 4 h0/9 it will no longer affect the flow, whereas, when the gate is moving down,
it will have to be completed removed in order to start the a dam-break like flow. In the first case if the
dam is not entirely removed one has a sluice gate like flow, and in the last case, if the gate is not entirely
removed, one has a flow similar to weir-flow.
Lauber and Hager (1998) proposed a criterion to classify a dam break as instantaneous. According to
these authors a dam-break can be considered instantaneous if the following relation holds:

2 h0
t r < 2 t0 = (1)
g
in which tr is the removal time of the gate, and t0 =(h0/g)0.5 is the dam-break natural time scale, h0 is the
initial water level in the dam reservoir and g is the acceleration due to gravity. This criterion was
proposed considering an upward moving gate and it is therefore interesting to discuss its applicability in
the context of a downward moving gate.

Table 1 Advantages and disadvantages of gate removal strategies: upward vs. downward removal
Strategy Advantages Disadvantages
Channel waterproofing Artificial entrainment of bed sediments
Upward gate Easier to implement -------
Only needs to remove 4h0/9 -------
Waterproofing
No artificial entrainment
Downward gate Harder to implement
-------
Complete removal required

2 DAM-BREAK INITIATION

2.1 The Initial Stages

Regarding the time and spatial evolution of the dam-break flow two regimes can be identified: the
near-field and the far-field. In this paper near-field refers to the instants where the St. Venant conditions
(parallel streamlines, hydrostatic pressure distribution, etc.) are not yet met, that is, the initial instants;
far-field will be used here to designate the instants for which the St.-Venant conditions are fulfilled. The
initial stages of a dam-break flow are characterized by significant change in both water height and
velocity, inducing curved streamlines, and thus out of the St. Venant hypotheses.
The first studies of the initial stages were proposed by Pohle (1952) who used a Lagrangian

2
approach to derive expressions for the behavior of the water surface. According to Estrade (1967), the
expressions obtained by Pohle (1952) are valid only up to t/t0 = 0.70. This time do not correspond
necessarily to the duration of the initial stages. Bukreev and Gusev (2005) proposed t/t0 = 2.4, based on
the water height on the gate section and Aleixo et al. (2011) proposed for t/t0 = 2.5, based on the velocity
field evolution.
Other features associated with the initial stages of the dam-break flow were observed. Stansby et al.
(1998), using an upward moving gate, observed the formation of a jet, whereas, Aleixo et al. (2011), using
a downward moving gate did not report such jet formation. These features are naturally affected by the
type of gate removal process as illustrated in Aleixo (2013).

2.2 The Gate Effect

Let the dam model be represented by the schemes of Figure 1 a) and b) where a downward moving
gate is assumed. Pohle (1952) demonstrated that, in case of a sudden gate removal, the free surface water
particles close to the gate will move as a free falling body. Neglecting the viscosity effect near the gate,
the position of a particle p will be given by:
1
z= z0 − gt 2 (2)
2
p

where zp is the particle’s position as function of time and z0 is the particle’s initial position.
For the gate motion one can assume that a) the gate moves with constant velocity; or b) the gate
moves with constant acceleration. Considering this last option, the gate position will be given by:
1
z= z g 0 − at 2 (3)
2
g

where zg is the gate tip position as function of time, zg0 is the gate tip initial position and a is the gate
downward acceleration (so considered as positive for a downward moving gate). Considering that the
initial gate tip position is zg = h0 the gate removal’s time, tgr, is given by:

h0
t gr = 2 (4)
a
During this time interval the uppermost particle near the gate tip is at:
h0
z=
p z0 − g (5)
a
or, since its initial position z0 = h0, and using the definition of t0:

g2 2
( h0 − z p ) =
a
t0 (6)

From this model it is clear that only with an infinite gate acceleration it will be possible to have an
undisturbed free surface, that is zp = h0. However, it is possible to assume a small variation in zp, and still
consider the dam removal to be instantaneous. Let the time corresponding to this small variation given by
tr. Therefore, from (5) and (4):
1 2
(h 0 − zp ) =
2
gtr (7)

Dividing equation (6) by h0 = g(t0)2, one has:

h0 − z p 1 tr2
= 2 (8)
h0 2 t0
Defining ϖ = (h0 − zp)/ h0 on has,

3
 0 ≤ϖ ≤1 (9)
Equation (8) can then be written as:

2 ϖ h0
t r < 2 ϖ t0 = (10)
g
where for ϖ = 1 one obtains the Lauber and Hager (1998) criterion as given by equation (1). From
equation (8) ϖ can be interpreted as a shape factor for the initial water column.

3 EXPERIMENTAL SETUP

3.1 The Flume and Measurement Equipment

The measurements were carried in the dam-break channel of the Institute for Mechanics Materials
and Civil Engineering, Université catholique de Louvain, Belgium. This channel is characterized by a
width of 0.25 m, 0.50 m height and a 6 m length. It was made of steel with glass windows allowing
optical access to the flow. At half of its length a 0.0025 m thick aluminum gate was placed in order to
simulate the dam-break flow. The gate separates the channel in two sections: the reservoir and the test
section as indicated in Figure 2 a). This gate is connected to a pneumatic jack that drives the gate
downward. The bottom of the reservoir section is made of impervious polished wood whereas the bottom
of the test section is made of glass. To minimize the water leaks in the gate section a small layer of putty
isused to fill the voids. A complete description of this channel can be found in Spinewine and Zech (2007)
and Baily and Van Reybroeck (2003).
To analyze flow a DALSA 1M150 fast camera was used. It has a maximum resolution of 1 Mpixel
and an adjustable acquisition frequency of 150 frames per second; in the present case however the
acquisition frequency was set at 100 frames per second, giving an acquisition time of 15 s. With this
camera an 8mm lenses was used. The cameras were controlled by Dalsa’s software and the obtained
images stored in a PC. To light the flow three 1000-W spots were used and placed above the channel, as
represented in Figure 2 b). In order to measure the flow velocity the water of the reservoirs was seeded
with High Density Polystyrene particles (ρ/ρw = 0.94), with a diameter of 2 mm. To improve the light
reflection from the particles these were coated with a white paint. Combination of the particle
density and the denser white coating made the resulting particles roughly neutrally buoyant (Aleixo
et al. 2011).

a)
S b)
G

Figure 2 a) Channel scheme and b) photography of the experimental setup: G denotes the downward moving gate
and S the light spots.

3.2 Analysis of the downward gate motion

With the Dalsa camera the motion of the downward moving gate is analyzed. Two initial water
heights were considered: h0 = 0.325 m and h0 = 0.40 m. In Figure 3 the downward movement of the gate
for h0 = 0.325 m is depicted. To analyze the gate motion the following non-dimensional variables are
introduced:

4
 x
X= , (11)
h0

z
Z= (12)
h0

wg
Wg = (13)
gh0

in which x is the horizontal coordinate, z is the vertical coordinate and wg = dzg/dt is the gate’s descending
velocity; zg denotes the gate’s tip position in time.
The obtained images were processed and the gate tip trajectory and its velocity evolution with time
are depicted in Figures 4 and 5. From Figure 4 it is possible to observe a slight gate deflection due to the
water pressure and from Figure 5 it is observed that the gate is pulled down with constant acceleration.

a) b)

c) d)

Figure 3 Four instants of the gate removal process. a) t = -0.11 s; b) t = -0.07 s; c) t = -0.03 s; d) t = 0 s.

a) b)

Figure 4 Measured trajectories of the gate tip for the two considered cases: a) h0 = 0.325 m and b) h0 = 0.40 m

5
 a) b)

Figure 5 Velocity measurements of the gate tip, Wg = wg/(gh0)0.5 for the two considered cases: a) h0 = 0.325 m and b)
h0 = 0.40 m.

3.3 Velocity Measurements with Particle Tracking Velocimetry (PTV)

To measure the velocity of the initial instants of the flow, the reservoir was seeded with the white
particles described in 2.1 To track these particles’ motion a Voronoï-based particle tracking algorithm
developed by Capart et al. (2002) was used. Although this algorithm has been developed for granular
flows, it was successful applied by Aleixo et al. (2011) to the dam-break flow analysis.
Its working principle is here briefly described, for more details the reader should refer to the paper
by Capart et al. (2002). The first step of the Voronoï PTV algorithm is the detection of particles in the
acquired images of the flow. This is made by a set of filters, which allow enhancing the particles’ intensity
distribution. To each intensity distribution a polynomial is fit in order to detect the particles’ centers with
subpixel resolution. The coordinates of each particle will be the used as the center Pn for a Voronoï
polygon as illustrated in Figure 6. It is possible to define a matching pattern, referred as Voronoï-star
(Capart et al., 2002), by joining the centers of adjacent Voronoï cells as depicted in Figure 6. Between two
consecutive frames, and assuming that the particles’ displacement is small, it is possible to use the
Voronoï stars as matching parameter, as depicted in Figure 7. A particle is matched between consecutive
frames if the star distance distS between two particles, defined as the median of the distances between the
star extremities, l1, l2, … once these two particles have been made to coincide (see Figure 7), is minimum:

(
match ( Pn ,1 ) = min dist S ( S n ,1 , S m ,2 ) ) (14)

where distS (Sn,1; Sm;2) is the star-distance that measures the degree of discrepancy between the patterns
formed by the two stars.

a) b)

Figure 6 Voronoï tessellation of two consecutive frames a) t = t1 and b) t = t1 + Δt The centers of the polygons are the
detected particles. a) Image at time t and identification of a Voronoï star in particle Pn,1; b) Image at time t+dt in
Voronoï star in particle Pn,2. Vn and Vi denote the corresponding Voronoï polygons.

6
 Figure 7 Voronoï stars at t and t + dt and its overlap to estimate the distance between extremities.

4 EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS

4.1 The Gate Effect

Using the Dalsa Cameras described in section 3.1 the removal time, tr, of the gate was measured.
The values corresponding to both studied conditions (h0 = 0.325 m and h0 = 0.40 m) are depicted in
Table 2.

Table 2 Gate removal times for different reservoir heads and comparison with the values suggested by the Lauber and
Hager (1998) criterion
Lauber and Hager Critical times (ms)
Downward Initial head Removal time Non-dimensional
(1998) critical times according to (10)
gate h0 (m) tr (ms) removal time Tr
(ms) with ϖ = 0.05
Case 1 0.325 70 0.385 257 57
Case 2 0.40 120 0.594 285 64

Comparing the measured removal times with the critical values proposed by Lauber and Hager
(1998) it is seen that, apparently, the gate removal can be considered as instantaneous for both cases. In
Figure 8 the corresponding images of the free surface for the complete gate removal are depicted for both
cases. It is possible to see that for h0 = 0.325 m the water surface profile is practically undisturbed,
whereas for h0 = 0.40 m a significant change in the water surface is visible; the free surface profile
resembles to the start of a weir-flow. This is put into evidence in Figure 9 where both water surface
profiles are depicted in non-dimensional coordinates.

a) b)

Figure 8 Water surface profiles for t = 0 a) h0 = 0.325 m and b) h0 = 0.40 m.

This indicates that the Lauber and Hager (1998) is not necessarily satisfactory to characterize the
instantaneous dam-break flow in case of a downward moving gate. Let one consider now expression (10)

7
and let ϖ = 0.05. This value here is, at this point, arbitrary but it can be seen from Figure 9 that
corresponds to a case where the water surface is not yet completely disturbed. With this value for ϖ the
critical removal times are now tr = 57 ms for h0 = 0.325 m and tr = 64 ms for h0 = 0.40 m. These removal
times have to be compared with 70 ms and 120 ms. If for the first case one can argue that 57 ms and
70 ms are about the same order of magnitude, for the case h0 = 0.40 m that is no longer true. This gives
sense to the criterion (10): if this latter is fulfilled, the water surface is much less affected than in the case
where (10) is not fulfilled although the Lauber-Hager criterion (1) holds.

Figure 9 Comparison of the free surface profile for both tested conditions.

4.2 Velocity Measurements in the Initial Instants

For the case where the dam removal could be considered instantaneous an analysis of the velocity
field is made. To determine the velocity field the method described in 2.3 was used. The flow images
between -0.77 < T < 1 were analyzed, but to time instants were chosen for a detailed analysis T = t/t0= 0.1
and T = 1. For T = 0.1, the tracking algorithm was made using 5 flow images to ensure a small time
interval, and thus capture the transient nature of the flow, and for T = 1, 11 images were used. One of the
advantages of the Particle Tracking Velocimetry is being a Lagrangian method. The particles’ trajectories
in that time interval are depicted in Figure 10. As it can be seen the particles near the free surface have an
initially a free-fall body motion as indicated by Pohle (1952).

Figure 10 Particles’ trajectories for -0.7 < T < 1 for h0 = 0.325 m

The velocity fields for T = 0.1 for both tested conditions are depicted in Figure 11. It is possible to

8
see that for both cases the particles near the free surface have a strong vertical component. However, for
the case h0 = 0.40 m the top of the water column starts to have also a horizontal component. It is also
possible to see that, whereas the case h0 = 0.325 m, the water column is still confined to the reservoir
(X < 0), for the case h0 = 0.40 m the flow horizontal movement has already started.
In order to summarize the velocity field the plots of Figure 12 are shown. These polar plots represent
both the modulus and the angle of each measured velocity vector. It can be observed that a number of
particles depart from a pure vertical trajectory.

a) b)

Figure 11 Velocity field for T = 0.1.; a) h0 =0.325 m; b) h0 =0.40 m. The “holes” seen in b) are due to a poor seeding
of the flow.

a) b)

Figure 12 Velocity field vectors distribution for a) T = 0.1 and b) T = 1.

5 CONCLUSIONS
A study on the gate removal effect on the initial stages of the dam-break flow was presented. For
two initial reservoir heads a downward gate removal was analyzed and the following conclusions are
drawn:
a) The pneumatic gate for both cases moves with constant acceleration.
b) For both tested cases the Lauber and Hager (1998) criterion, designed for an upward moving
gate, predicted an instantaneous removal.
c) The analysis of the water surface confirmed that for the case h0 = 0.40 m the free surface at the
beginning of the downward gate removal was similar to a weir-flow.
d) A criterion, inspired by the one proposed by Lauber and Hager (1998) for upward moving gates,
was adapted to downward moving gates. This criterion allows considering also the free surface
changing.
e) In the initial instants, the velocity of the uppermost particles has a strong vertical component as
assumed by Pohle (1952).

9
 This study can be further developed considering the interaction between the gate and the
immediately adjacent water body.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The present work was supported by Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia SFRH/BD/36023/2007,
Portugal.

References
Aleixo, R., Soares-Frazão, S. and Zech Y., 2011. Velocity-field measurements in a dam-break flow using a PTV
Voronoï imaging technique, Experiments in Fluids, 50:6, 1633-1649.
Aleixo, R., 2011. Time resolved PIV analysis of the initial stages of the dam break. In Proceedings of the 34th IAHR
Conference, Brisbane, Australia.
Aleixo, R., 2013. Experimental Study of the Early Stages of a Dam-Break Flow Over Fixed and Mobile Beds. Ph.D.
Thesis. Universite catholique de Louvain. Belgium.
Khankandi, A.F., Tahershamsi , A., Soares-Frazão, S., 2012. Experimental investigation of reservoir geometry effect
on dam-break flow. Journal of Hydraulic Research, 50:4, 376 –387.
Bailly, D. and Van Reybroeck, A., 2003. Conception et réalisation d’un canal pour la modélisation expérimentale de
la propagation sur lit mobile de l’onde de rupture d un barrage. Master’s thesis, Université catholique de Louvain.
Belgium (in French).
Bukreev, V. and Gusev A., 2005. Initial stage of the generation of dam-break waves. Doklady Physics 50:4, 200–203.
Capart, H., Young, D., and Zech, Y., 2002. Voronoï imaging methods for the measurement of granular flows.
Experiments in Fluids 32, 121–135.
Dressler, R., 1952. Hydraulic resistance effect upon the dam-break functions. Journal of Research, Ntl. Bureau of
Standards 49-3, 217–2 25.
Estrade, J., 1967. Contribution à l’étude de la supression d’un barrage. Direction des etudes er Recherches Chatou
Serie A- Volume 1, 3–128.
Lauber, G. and Hager, W., 1998. Experiments to dambreak wave: horizontal channel. Journal of Hydraulic Research
36, 291–307.
Oertel, M. and Bung, D. , 2012. Initial stage of two-dimensional dam-break waves: laboratory versus vof. Journal of
Hydraulic Research 50:1, 2012.
Pohle, F., 1952. Motion of water due to breaking of a dam and related problems, in gravity waves. Ntl. Bureau of
Standards Circular 521, 47–53.
Ritter, A., 1892. Die fortpflanzung der wasserwellen. Zeitschrift Verein Deutscher Ingenieure 36, 947–954 (in
German).
Spinewine, B. and Zech, Y., 2007. Small-scale laboratory dam-break waves on movable beds. Journal of Hydraulic
Research 45 Special Issue, 73–86.
Stansby, P., Chengini, A. and Barnes T., 1998. The initial stages of the dam break flow. Journal of Fluid Mechanics
374, 407–424

10