Prediction accuracy of reservoir break flood simulation model using finite volume method and UAV

Abstract

Methods for producing high-resolution digital topographic maps using an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), and 3D fluid dynamics simulation to estimate the flooded areas caused by a collapsed reservoir, were proposed in this paper. The UAV flight path for photographing damaged areas was divided into two sections considering the drone flight time and overlapping range of the images in the x-and y-directions. The metadata taken by the drone were transferred into world coordinates by tracking the key features of the photographs of nearby areas using a 3D rotation matrix. The point cloud data with a 3D space were extracted from the registered images, and a digital surface map (DSM) was produced using a point cloud classification geometric mapping technique. To amend the serious elevation errors caused by natural or artificial obstacles, a kriging interpolation method was used to reproduce the DSM. A transient computational simulation that considers both the complex geometric topology and hydrodynamic energy of flowing water was conducted using FLOW-3D software to deal with an renormalization group (RNG) turbulence model. The flooded areas calculated through visual reading using images taken by the UAV were compared with the 3D simulation results for verification. The flooded areas estimated through the simulation were approximately 18.3% larger than those found by visual reading. Turbulent flows were mainly observed in obstacles or curved areas of the stream, and the differences in the water depth could be further increased. However, the villagers confirmed that the flooded areas were much greater than what was seen through the visual reading. Therefore, the combination of UAV surveying and the 3D simulation method based on the RNG turbulence model is recommended to accurately estimate flooded areas, and it will support an administrative policy aimed at minimizing the economic costs of damage caused by future reservoir collapses.