Development and testing of a simple 2D finite volume model of sub-critical shallow water flow

• Published in: International journal for numerical methods in fluids Vol. 44; no. 11; pp. 1231 - 1255
• Main Author: Horritt, Matthew
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Chichester, UK John Wiley & Sons, Ltd 20.04.2004; Wiley
• Subjects: Applied fluid mechanics; Computational methods in fluid dynamics; Exact sciences and technology; finite volume; Fluid dynamics; Fundamental areas of phenomenology (including applications); Hydrodynamics, hydraulics, hydrostatics; Physics; shallow water; sub-critical flow; Computational fluid dynamics; Hydraulics; Digital simulation; Subcritical flow; Free surface flow; Mesh generation; Finite volume methods; Shallow-water equations
• ISSN: 0271-2091; 1097-0363
• DOI: 10.1002/fld.684

Many environmental applications of shallow water flow modelling can be characterized as only slowly varying and everywhere sub‐critical. A simplified finite volume model is therefore developed that is capable of describing pertinent shallow water flow processes more efficiently than the usual Godunov/ Riemann characteristics approaches. The model is tested against a number of analytical and numerical solutions to the governing equations. The model reproduces accurately flow round a circular bend, flow over topography, flow up an initially dry beach and floodwave propagation down a meandering river reach, with mass conservative solutions. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.