Arnaldo Pierleoni

Hydraulic control of culvert on floodplain simulation

Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD), which is based on the Navier-Stokes equations and the Lattice Boltzmann Methods (LBM), has been used formodeling broad alluvial floodplains in the presence of network infrastructures and hydraulic and structural singularities, such as road embankments, levees and bridges. These singularities create computational weighting that is conceptually overcome by: i) efflux laws for bridges; ii) empirical formulas for banks overflow; iii) laws for the synchronous filling of the floodplains. It is also noted that the literature has rarely discussed the flooding of floodplains cut off by permeable road embankments, whose permeability is achieved by means of culverts. This paper analyzes this particular case and provides a numerical solution that can be easily implemented for engineering applications. Finally, the paper highlights that the gradient of flood hydrograph affects both the numerical procedures to obtain the solution and the width of the integration step.