Modeling dam break granular flows

River morphodynamics and sediment transportMechanics of sediment transpor

Spatial Aggregation Effect on Water Demand Peak Factor

A methodological framework for the estimation of the expected value of hourly peak water demand factor and its dependence on the spatial aggregation level is presented. The proposed methodology is based on the analysis of volumetric water meter measurements with a 1-h time aggregation, preferred by water companies for monitoring purposes. Using a peculiar sampling design, both a theoretical and an empirical estimation of the expected value of the peak factor and of the related standard error (confidence bands) are obtained as a function of the number of aggregated households (or equivalently of the number of users). The proposed methodology accounts for the cross-correlation among consumption time series describing local water demand behaviours. The effects of considering a finite population is also discussed. The framework is tested on a pilot District Metering Area with more than 1000 households equipped with a telemetry system with 1-h time aggregation. Results show that the peak factor can be expressed as a power function tending to an asymptotic value greater than one for the increasing number of aggregated households. The obtained peak values, compared with several literature studies, provide useful indications for the design and management of secondary branched pipes of water distribution systems

Applicability of Diffusive model for mud-flows: An unsteady analysis

applied to the analysis of debris- and mud- flow dynamics. For this reason, the study of their applicability conditions represents an important concern. The present work investigates on the applicability conditions of the Diffusive Wave Model (DWM) for the prediction of mud-flows of shear-thinning fluid represented by a power-law rheology. The study has been carried out through the numerical solution of the DWM and the Full Wave Model (FWM) in unsteady conditions with hydrographs of different durations assigned at the channel inlet. The analysis has considered different rheological indexes, several values of the Froude (F) and of the Kinematic Wave (K) numbers. Predictions of DWM and FDM have been compared considering the mean value of dimensionless errors on maximum flow depth,ε∗h, and maximum discharge ε∗q. Positive (negative) error leads to an overestimation (underestimation) of the maximum flow depth and flow discharge in the prediction of the DWM. In the present analysis the DWM is considered safely applicable in case of underestimation, i.e. for positive values of ε∗h and ε∗q. Negative errors are acceptable if their absolute value is smaller than 5%. For all the investigated values of the governing parameters, the performance of the DWM has been found to strongly depend on the value of the rheological index, worsening as the fluid rheology becomes more shear-thinning. Regardless of the hydrograph duration, and for fixed power-law exponent (n) and F values, results indicate the existence of limiting values of the kinematic wave numberKh and Kq above which the DWM is applicable in terms of maximum depth and discharge, respectively. For K values smaller than Kh and Kq, the DWM applicability depends also on the hydrograph duration. In these conditions and for several values of the (F, n) pair, the threshold values of the hydrograph duration necessary for DWM applicability have been identified. The presented applicability criteria represent a useful guideline for the practical application of the DWM in assessing the hazard of a mud flood

Impact Force of a Geomorphic Dam-Break Wave against an Obstacle: Effects of Sediment Inertia

The evaluation of the impact force on structures due to a flood wave is of utmost importance for estimating physical damage and designing adequate countermeasures. The present study investigates, using 2D shallow-water approximation, the morphodynamics and forces caused by a dam-break wave against a rigid obstacle in the presence of an erodible bed. A widely used coupled equilibrium model, based on the two-dimensional Saint–Venant hydrodynamic equations combined with the sediment continuity Exner equation (SVEM), is compared with a more complex two-phase model (TPM). Considering an experimental set-up presented in the literature with a single rigid obstacle in a channel, two series of tests were performed, assuming sand or light sediments on the bottom. The former test is representative of a typical laboratory experiment, and the latter may be scaled up to a field case. For each test, two different particle diameters were considered. Independently from the particle size, it was found that in the sand tests, SVEM performs similarly to TPM. In the case of light sediment, larger differences are observed, and the SVEM predicts a higher force of about 26% for both considered diameters. The analysis of the flow fields and the morphodynamics shows these differences can be essentially ascribed to the role of inertia of the solid particles

Greedy algorithms for sensor location in sewer systems

Wastewater quality monitoring is receiving growing interest with the necessity of developing new strategies for controlling accidental and intentional illicit intrusions. In designing a monitoring network, a crucial aspect is represented by the sensors’ location. In this study, a methodology for the optimal placement of wastewater monitoring sensors in sewer systems is presented. The sensor location is formulated as an optimization problem solved using greedy algorithms (GRs). The StormWater Management Model (SWMM) was used to perform hydraulic and water-quality simulations. Six different procedures characterized by different fitness functions are presented and compared. The performances of the procedures are tested on a real sewer system, demonstrating the suitability of GRs for the sensor-placement problem. The results show a robustness of the methodology with respect to the detection concentration parameter, and they suggest that procedures with multiple objectives into a single fitness function give better results. A further comparison is performed using previously developed multi-objective procedures with multiple fitness functions solved using a genetic algorithm (GA), indicating better performances of the GR. The existing monitoring network, realized without the application of any sensor design, is always suboptimal

Sewer networks monitoring through a topological backtracking

The interest in wastewater monitoring is always growing, with applications mainly aimed at detection of pollutants and at the environmental epidemiological surveillance. However, it often happens that the strategies proposed to manage these problems are inapplicable due to the lack of information on the hydraulics of the systems. To overcome this problem, the present paper develops and proposes a topological backtracking strategy for the optimal monitoring of sewer networks, which acts by subrogating the hydraulic information with the geometric ones, e.g., diameter and slope, thus not requiring any hydraulic simulation. The topological backtracking approach aims at evaluating an impact coefficient for each node of the network used to face with the problems of sensor location and network coverage for purposes related to the spread of contaminants and pathogens. Finally, the positioning of the sensors for each monitoring scheme is addressed by a priority rank, based on the efficiency of each sensor in terms of network coverage with respect to a specific weight (e.g., length, flow). The main goal is to design a monitoring scheme that provide the required coverage of the network by minimizing the number of sensors with respect to specific measurement threshold value. The results show the effectiveness of the strategy in supporting the optimal design with the topological-based backtracking approach without the necessity of performing hydraulic simulations, with great advantage in terms of required data and computational time

two dimensional two phase depth integrated model for transients over mobile bed

AbstractFast geomorphic transients may involve complex scenarios of sediment transport, occurring near the bottom as bed load (i.e., saltating, sliding, and rolling) or as suspended load in the upper portion of the flow. The two sediment transport modalities may even coexist or alternate each other during the same event, especially when the shear stress varies considerably. Modeling these processes is therefore a challenging task, for which the usual representation of the flow as a mixture may result in being unsatisfactory. In the present paper, a new two-phase depth-averaged model is presented that accounts for variable sediment concentration in both bed and suspended loads. Distinct phase velocities are considered for bed load, whereas the slip velocity between the two phases is neglected in the suspended load. It is shown that the resulting two-phase model is hyperbolic, and the analytical expression of the eigenvalues is provided. The entrainment/deposition of sediment between the bottom and the bed ..

Monitoring planning for urban drainage networks

Urban drainage network (UDN) monitoring is an important task whose planning can be related to various purposes, as for example contaminant detection and epidemiological studies. This paper proposes two different strategies for the identification of a monitoring system for UDNs. The optimal solution, in terms of location and number of sensors, is firstly addressed using a deterministic approach. A new mathematical model is developed and a global optimization solver is employed to perform the optimization procedure. Secondly, the position of devices is also investigated using a new strategy based on the complex network theory (CNT) tools. The comparison between the results achieved by both the strategies is finally presented with reference to a benchmark network