A comprehensive study on dam-break flow over dry and wet beds

Abstract This paper presents a comparative study of the influence of the initial and geometrical conditions on dam-break flow. The conditions are including the reservoir still water level, length and width as well as tail-water depth on dry and wet beds, respectively. The free surface evolution is analyzed through the volume of fluid (VOF) method. The sensitivity to mesh resolution and turbulence closure models are evaluated in three cell sizes and four models, respectively. Likewise, the turbulence closure models namely Reynolds averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) and large eddies simulation (LES) are compared with the previous experimental data. The LES showed relatively better agreement than other ones on the free surface evolution. The results declared the crucial role of the initial and geometrical conditions on the free surface progression, flow energy, outflow and inflow hydrographs and the resultant forces.