Equipment safety in renewable energies exploitation

Abstract

: This paper considers the dam-break problem in a horizontal smooth 1D channel, for the purpose of equipment safety in renewable energies exploitation. The fluid is water and it can be described by a Newtonian model, provided that the inertial effects be neglected versus the viscous ones in the momentum balance. Assuming the shallow water approximation, a non dimensional equation is built from the continuity and the Navier-Stokes equations in the limit of zero-inertia and it is solved analytically in two limits: short time and long time. These solutions are then combined into a single, universal model. Limitations of the model are examined by comparison to a converged finite difference numerical solution of the flow equation.