SPH Modelling of Dam-break Floods, with Damage Assessment to Electrical Substations

The Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics code SPHERA (RSE SpA) is validated on a laboratory urban dam-break flood. Comparisons with a porous Shallow Water Equations - Finite Volume Method 2D model are also reported. SPHERA provides a performance comparable with the state-of-the-art code, with results closer to the measured values during the most risky flood stage. Some improvements of SPHERA predictions are achieved by a direct modelling of the mobile gate triggering the flood. SPHERA is also empowered with a substation-flooding damage model, which distinguishes the functional damage due to the substation out of service from the material damage to the substation components. SPHERA is finally applied to a full-scale catastrophic 3D dam-break flood, which interacts with a lower hydroelectric reservoir, covers four residential areas and two electrical substations, whose related damage is assessed. SPHERA is distributed on a GitHub public repository, included the input files of this study.