SPH modeling for Dam-Break waves of irrigation tanks

The present thesis focuses on the use of the three-dimensional Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) method to model the propagation of a dam-break wave and its interaction with the area downstream of the dam body. In particular, the Explicit Incompressible SPH scheme was used, which is a variation of the SPH algorithm, where pressure fluctuations and computational effort are largely reduced. This algorithm has been used and validated in the field of two-dimensional simulations, but it is somewhat unexplored in the three-dimensional one. For this purpose, as the first test, the confrontation with a simulation of a dam-break wave carried out with the two-dimensional EISPH scheme and one carried out by Shao & Lo is performed, in order to verify the correct functioning of the algorithm. Then a comparison with a simple analytical solution of a Dam-Break wave, given by Ritter's solution, was useful to understand the correctness of the wave profile and of the order of magnitude of the wavefront celerity. Completed these two tests, helpful for the calibration of the algorithm, the experiments of Aureli, Maranzoni, Mignosa and Ziveri were simulated, in which a solid parallelepiped is placed downstream of a breach in the dam body and is hit by the dam-break wave caused by the sudden opening of this breach. In particular, the difference in shape between the wave in the physical and in the numerical model was investigated, paying attention to the variation of water depth between them, in time and space, using the transformation function between grey tones and water depth derived by the authors, realizing a punctual comparison with the EISPH simulation at the same time steps. In order to increase the resolution of the numerical model, which means increase the number of particles present in the domain decreasing their radius, without increasing the computational cost too much, the symmetry of the problem was exploited, realizing only half the domain, thus having half of the necessary particles and a contained computational effort, evaluating again the difference in water depth distribution between the two models.