OpenFOAM Based Approach for the Prediction of the Dam Break with an Obstacle

Abstract

The phenomenon of the flow impact on a vertical wall resulting from a dam problem is simulated by using OpenFOAM. In this simulation, a dam break was also simulated with the addition of obstacles with various dimensions. The aim of this study is to assess the accuracy of the solver for problems in the impact wave category from the experimental results of previous researchers and other numerical solution techniques compared with the results of this solver. Different aspects of flow such as free surface elevation before and after the initial impact have been observed in depth. The method used in this research is numerical computation simulation with the OpenFOAM approach which has the advantage of being more accurate and fast simulation time. The variations in the dimensions of the obstacle in this study were b / h = 0.25, b / h = 0.5 and b / h = 1.0. From the simulation data, it is found that the numerical approach has been validated through quantitative comparisons with experimental measurements. The computational positions of the leading edge of the collapsed water column match the experimental data. The difference between the experiment and this numerical solution is below 2%.