Water Surface Profile Computations?How Many Sections do I Need?

by David B. Thompson, Texas Tech Univ, Lubbock, United States,
Tavis D. Rogers, Texas Tech Univ, Lubbock, United States,



Document Type: Proceeding Paper

Part of: Hydraulic Engineering

Abstract:

One-dimensional streamflow models, including standard-step models, require a sufficient number of cross sections to satisfy two needs. First, a sufficient number of cross sections must be provided so that the model of each stream reach, as represented by the terminal cross sections, preserves the geometric and hydraulic properties of the prototype. Second, a sufficient number of cross sections must be provided to allow the model to correctly estimate the solution of the governing equations in discrete space. Two test cases were developed and solved to demonstrate these concepts. The first case required two cross sections to describe the geometry and 17 computational cross sections. The second case required three cross sections to describe the geometry and 9 computational cross sections. Without the addition of computational cross sections, the water-surface profiles had errors of about 0.4 feet and 2 feet, respectively.

Subject Headings: Cross sections | Computer models | Water surface profiles | Hydraulic models | Streamflow | Mathematical models | Geometrics

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