Competition between kinematic and dynamic waves in floods on steep slopes

Abstract

We present a theoretical stability analysis of the flow after the sudden release of a fixed mass of fluid on an inclined plane formally restricted to relatively long time scales, for which the kinematic regime is valid. Shallow-water equations for steep slopes with bed stress are employed to study the threshold for the onset of roll waves. An asymptotic solution for long-wave perturbations of small amplitude is found on background flows with a Froude number value of 2. Small disturbances are stable under this condition, with a linear decay rate independent of the wavelength and with a wavelength that increases linearly with time. For larger values of the Froude number it is shown that the basic flow moves at a different scale than the perturbations, and hence the wavelength of the unstable modes is characterized as a function of the plane-parallel Froude number Fr p and a measure of the local slope of the free-surface height φ by means of a multiple-scale analysis in space and time. The linear stability results obtained in the presence of small non-uniformities in the flow, φ > 0, introduce substantial differences with respect to the plane-parallel flow with φ = 0. In particular, we find that instabilities do not occur at Froude numbers Fr cr much larger than the critical value 2 of the parallel case for some wavelength ranges. These results differ from that previously reported by Lighthill & Whitham (Proc. R. Soc. A, vol. 229, 1955, pp. 281-345), because of the fundamental role that the nonparallel, time-dependent characteristics of the kinematic-wave play in the behaviour of small disturbances, which was neglected in their stability analyses. The present work concludes with supporting numerical simulations of the evolution of small disturbances, within the framework of the frictional shallow-water equations, that are superimposed on a base state which is essentially a kinematic wave, complementing the asymptotic theory relevant near the onset. The numerical simulations corroborate the cutoff in wavelength for the spectrum that stabilizes the tail of the dam-break flood.

Hydrodynamic Instabilities in Well-Balanced Finite Volume Schemes for Frictional Shallow Water Equations. The Kinematic Wave Case

“…In the particular case Fr p = 2, where the plane-parallel Froude number Fr p is defined by (7), the exact solution to (1)- (2) for the initial and boundary conditions given by (11) and (14), respectively, can be written as functions of {ξ, τ } [3]:…”

“…Hence, (16) is used in the next section to check the capabilities of several well-balanced finite volume schemes to compute the amplitude, wavelength and phase speed of small nonlinear perturbations. Furthermore, (16) is not only an exact solution to (1)- (2) for Fr p = 2 but also an asymptotic solution for Fr p > 2 when φ 1-typically φ (9) should be O(10 −4 ) to avoid non-normal effects-and λ 0 > λ ∞ (φ, V 0 , θ) (10) at t = 0 [3]. Notice that, according to (16), the normalized perturbation (h, u) T decays and its wavelength increases linearly with time at a rate independent of the initial wavelength λ 0 and of the plane-parallel Froude number Fr p (7).…”

“…The resulting flow is known as 'kinematic wave' [1]. The system of hyperbolic balance laws (4) admits regular solutions of the form ω = i=0 i ω i [3]. The leading-order term of the regular solution, …”

“…One of us [3] has presented a linear stability analysis of (1) by means of a multiple-scale analysis in space and time for the flow whose initial conditions (t = 0) are…”

“…We refer the reader to [3] for further details on the stability analysis. We start with the formulation of the problem, the definition of some asymptotic solutions and the description of the numerical schemes (Sect.…”