SPH study of the evolution of water–water interfaces in dam break flows

The mixing process of upstream and downstream waters in the dam break flow could generate significant ecological impact on the downstream reaches and influence the environmental damages caused by the dam break flood. This is not easily investigated with the analytical and numerical models based on the grid method due to the large deformation of free surface and the water–water interface. In this paper, a weakly compressible smoothed particle hydrodynamics (WCSPH) solver is used to study the advection and mixing process of the water bodies in two-dimensional dam break flows over a wet bed. The numerical results of the mixing dynamics immediately after the release of the dam water are found to agree satisfactorily with the published experimental and numerical results. Then, further investigations are carried out to study the interface development at the later stage of dam break flows in a long channel. The analyses concentrate on the evolution of the interface at different ratios between the upstream and downstream water depths. The potential capabilities of the mesh-free SPH modelling approach for predicting the detailed development of the water–water interfaces are fully demonstrated.