Analysis of Dam Break Problem Using a Lagrangian Method and Comparing it with Eulerian Approach

This research attempts to develop and improve the simulation of incompressible flow and wave propagation due to dam break. Using Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH), a consistent predictive-corrective method is introduced to simulate free-surface flows in dam break. For this purpose, two new SPH schemes are presented for spatial discretization of first and second derivatives in viscosity and Laplacian pressure terms at Navier-Stokes equations. These proposed schemes overcome the weaknesses of existing schemes, and has the properties of consistency and stability. Next, using Eulerian approach and Volume of Fluid (VOF) method in the open-source software of OpenFoam, two-phase unsteady flows due to dam break are simulated in two dimensions. In order to assess the accuracy and performance of the proposed methods, the obtained results are compared with each other and with reliable experimental and numerical solutions in the literature. It was shown that two presented approaches are able to handle the violating free surface flow in dam break problems with high accuracy. Particularly, the proposed SPH method leads to consistent, stable and convergent solutions especially for pressure distribution.