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Breaching of earthen or sandy dams/dunes by overtopping flow and waves is a complicated process with strong, unsteady flow, high sediment transport, and rapid bed changes in which the interactions between flow and morphology should not be ignored. This study presents a depth-averaged two-dimensional (2D) coupled flow and sediment transport model to investigate the flow and breaching processes with and without waves. Bed change and variable flow density are included in the flow continuity and momentum equations to consider the impacts of sediment transport. The model adopts the non-equilibrium approach for total-load sediment transport and specifies different repose angles to handle non-cohesive embankment slope avalanching. The equations are solved using an explicit finite volume method on a rectangular grid with the improved Godunov-type central upwind scheme and the nonnegative reconstruction of the water depth method to handle mixed-regime flows near the breach. The model has been tested against two sets of experimental data which show that it well simulates the flow characteristics, bed changes, and sediment transport. It is then applied to analyze flow and morphologic changes by overtopping flow with and without waves. The simulated bed change and breach cross-section shape show a significant difference if waves are considered. Erosion by flow without waves mainly occurs at the breach and is dominated by vertical erosion at the initial stage followed by the lateral erosion. With waves, the flow OPEN ACCESSWater 2015, 7 4284 overtops the entire length of the dune to cause faster erosion along the entire length. Erosion mainly takes place at the upper layer at the initial stage and gradually accelerates as the height of the dune reduces and flow discharge increases, which indicates the simulated results with waves shall be further verified by physical experimental evidence.

Based on the Godunov-type cell-centered finite volume method, this paper presents a two-dimensional well-balanced shallow water model for simulating flows over arbitrary topography with wetting and drying. The central upwind scheme is used for the computation of mass and momentum fluxes on interface. The novel aspect of the present model is a robust and accurate nonnegative water depth reconstruction method which is implemented in the unstructured mesh to achieve second-order accuracy in space and to track the moving wet/dry fronts of the flow over irregular terrain. By defining the bed elevation and primary flow variables at the cell center in the nonstaggered grid system, all computational cells are either fully wet or dry to avoid the problem of being partially wetted. The developed model is capable of being well balanced and preserving the computed water depth to be nonnegative under a certain CFL restriction, which makes it robust and stable. The present model is validated against three benchmark tests and two laboratory dam-break cases. Finally, the good agreement between the numerical results by the established model and measured data of the Malpasset dam break event on a 1/400 scale physical model demonstrates the capability of the model for the real-life applications.

The use of multiple-level non-uniform rectangular mesh in coupled flow and sediment transport modeling is preferred to achieve high accuracy in important region without increasing computational cost greatly. Here, a robust coupled hydrodynamic and non-equilibrium sediment transport model is developed on non-uniform rectangular mesh to simulate dam break flow over movable beds. The enhanced shallow water and sediment transport equations are adopted to consider the mass and momentum exchange between the flow phase and sediment phase. The flux at the interface is calculated by the positivity preserving central upwind scheme, which belongs to Godunov-type Riemann-problem-solver-free central schemes and is less expensive than other popular Riemann solvers while still capable of tracking wet/dry fronts accurately. The nonnegative water depth reconstruction method is used to achieve second-order accuracy in space. The model was first verified against two laboratory experiments of dam break flow over irregular fixed bed. Then the quantitative performance of the model was further investigated by comparing the computational results with measurement data of dam break flow over movable bed. The good agreements between the measurements and the numerical simulations are found for the flow depth, velocity and bed changes.