Environmental risk evaluation based on dam-break flood numerical simulation

The conventional dam-break environmental risk evaluation method is limited to qualitative analysis and the hydraulic factors such as when flood arrive, flood fastest velocity, whole time of flood submerge and flood depth are acquired almost by the method of simplified analysis or empirical formula method. Aimed at these problems exist in dam-break flood environmental risk evaluation, the volume of fluid (VOF) method coupled to a non-linear k-epsilon turbulent closure method is proposed in this paper to simulate dam-break flood routing. According to the dam-break flood simulation results, the hydraulic factors will be obtained. Then the environmental risk evaluation model is built based on the dam-break flood 3-D numerical simulation results. The 1-D water quality model is used to calculate the water quality along the river. Then environmental influence of dam-break to the downstream river is analyzed. A reservoir located in South China is taken as a case study. Results indicate that dam-break flood has great influence to the water quality of downstream river. The results can offer reliable decision basis to dam safety and regional environmental sustainable development.