Rockfill dams are nowadays often preferred over concrete dams because of their economic advantages, their flexible and thank to the great advance achieved in geosciences and geomechanics.
Unfortunately their behavior in case of overtopping is still an open issue. In fact very little is known on this phenomenon that in most cases leads to the complete finite failure o the structure with catastrophic
consequences in term of loss of lives and economic damage.
The principal aim of the present work is the development of a computational method
to simulate the overtopping and the beginning of failure of the downstream shoulder of
a rockfill dam. The whole phenomenon is treated in a continuous framework.
The fluid free surface problem outside and inside the rockfill slop e is treated using a
unique Eulerian fixed mesh formulation. A level set technique is employed to track the
evolution of the free surface. The traditional Navier-Stokes equations are modified in
order to automatically detect the presence of the porous media. The non-linear seepage
is evaluated using a quadratic form of the resistance law for which the Ergun's coefficients
have been chosen.
Abstract
Rockfill dams are nowadays often preferred over concrete dams because of their economic advantages, their flexible and thank to the great advance achieved in geosciences and geomechanics.
Unfortunately their behavior in case of overtopping is still an open issue. In fact very [...]
In this paper, we present a computational algorithm for solving an important practical problem, namely, the thermoplastic polymer melting under fire conditions. We propose here a technique that aims at minimizing the computational cost. This is basically achieved by using the immersed boundary‐like approach, combining the particle finite element method for the polymer with an Eulerian formulation for the ambience. The polymer and ambience domains interact over the interface boundary. The boundary is explicitly defined by the position of the Lagrangian domain (polymer) within the background Eulerian mesh (ambience). This allows to solve the energy equation for both subdomains on the Eulerian mesh with different thermal properties. Radiative transport equation is exclusively considered for the ambience, and the heat exchange at the interface is modeled by calculating the radiant heat flux and imposing it as a natural boundary condition.
Abstract
In this paper, we present a computational algorithm for solving an important practical problem, namely, the thermoplastic polymer melting under fire conditions. We propose here a technique [...]