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Shallow-water analysis of gravity-current flows past isolated obstacles

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 September 2009

E. GONZALEZ-JUEZ  and
E. MEIBURG
E. GONZALEZ-JUEZ
Affiliation:
Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of California at Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA, USA
E. MEIBURG*
Affiliation:
Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of California at Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA, USA
*
†Email address for correspondence: meiburg@engineering.ucsb.edu
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Abstract

The flow of a partial-depth lock-exchange gravity current past an isolated bottom-mounted obstacle is studied by means of two-dimensional direct numerical simulations and steady shallow-water theory. The simulations indicate that the flux of the current downstream of the obstacle is approximately constant in space and time. This information is employed to extend the shallow-water models of Rottman et al. (J. Hazard. Mater., vol. 11, 1985, pp. 325–340) and Lane-Serff, Beal & Hadfield (J. Fluid Mech., vol. 292, 1995, pp. 39–53), in order to predict the height and front speed of the downstream current as functions of the upstream Froude number and the ratio of obstacle to current height. The model predictions are found to agree closely with the simulation results. In addition, the shallow-water model provides an estimate for the maximum drag that lies within 10% of the simulation results for obstacles much larger than the boundary-layer thickness.

Type
Papers
Information
Journal of Fluid Mechanics , Volume 635 , 25 September 2009 , pp. 415 - 438
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009

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