On the morning of December 1, 1923, the Gleno Dam (located in the Central Italian Alps) suddenly collapsed a few days after the first complete reservoir filling. Nearly 4:5 × 10 6 m 3 of water was released. The consequent inundation caused significant destruction along the downstream valley and a death toll of at least 356 lives. This failure is the only historical case of dam break caused by structural deficiencies that has occurred in Italy. As a result, it has deeply influenced the evolution of Italian regulations regarding dam design and hydraulic risk evaluation. However, in spite of its relevance, this event has never been characterized from a hydraulic standpoint. This paper reports the main information obtained from the analysis of a vast amount of historical documents regarding the Gleno Dam break to set up a case study useful for validating dam-break models in mountain settings. Moreover, it presents the main results of one-dimensional (1D) modeling of the dam break wave propagation accomplished with a first-order finite volume numerical scheme recently proposed in the literature for field applications. The overall effectiveness and reliability of the model are evaluated for this case characterized by very irregular topography. Finally, the practical relevance of several choices that the numerical reconstruction of this kind of event demands is tested.
In the present paper a procedure for the construction of Synthetic Design Hydrographs (SDH) for ungauged sites is proposed, based on the regional estimation of Flood Duration Frequency (FDF) and Peak-Duration (PD) curves.The basic hypothesis is that the reduction ratio between the quantiles of maximum average discharge in given duration and peak discharge is independent of the return period, which in practice occurs for medium-large catchments. Under this assumption the regional estimation of FDF curves reduces to the estimation of peak discharge quantiles and reduction ratio.The procedure has been applied to the Po river in Italy, employing for the calibration the historical flood waves recorded at eight gauging stations along the river.The regional estimates of SDHs have been compared with the local ones obtained at the gauging stations. At two consecutive upstream stations, the comparison reveals and partly rectifies some clear data inconsistencies due to uncertainties in stage-discharge relationships.The proposed model provides an operational tool for hydrologic risk assessment and flood protection planning along the entire course of the Po river. Moreover, the regionalisation procedure is quite simple and its validity is not restricted to the specific case presented in this paper.
New experimental results of ID Dam-Break flows with shocks and results found in the literature are compared with those obtained by means of a numerical model based on the well-known McCormack shock-capturing scheme. In implementing the numerical scheme care has been taken to treat the source terms of the equations so that they are compatible with the resolution of shocks introducing artificial dissipation terms or Total Variation Diminishing (TVD) corrections.To verify the numerical model under severe test conditions, laboratory experiments have been carried out in which shock formation, reverse flow and wetting and drying conditions in the flow field were induced. The good agreement between experimental and computed results confirms the validity of the numerical model even in limit conditions that could occur in nature, for which the St. Venant hypotheses are not completely verified. RÉSUMÉLes résultats d'un modèle numérique de simulation des écoulements associés aux ruptures de barrage, utilisant Ie methode de MacCormack pour la capture des chocs, sont compares avec des données expérimentales nouvelles, comme a d'autres données issues de la littérature. La facon de traiter les terms source des equations a été particulièrement étudiée, pour qu'ils soient compatibles avec la resolution des chocs introduisant des termes de dissipation artificielle selon l'approche classique ou des corrections selon la methode TVD (Total Variation Diminishing). Pour tester Ie modèle dans des conditions hydrodynamiques sévères, les configurations expérimentales ont été réalisées de maniere a pouvoir repro duce la formation, la propagation et la reflexion des ondes de chocs, des écoulements inverses, sur fond sec comme sur fond mouillé. Le bon accord entre les résultats du modèle mathématique et les données expérimentales obtenues confirme l'excellent comportement du modèle dans des situa tions hydrodynamiques se situant hors limites des hypotheses faites dans les equations de St Venant.
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