Simulation of the Full-Process Dynamics of Floating Vehicles Driven by Flash Floods

Flash flooding has become more prominent under climate change, threatening people's life and property. Post-event investigations of recent events emphasize the role of floating debris, such as vehicles, in exacerbating damage. Few modeling methods and tools have been developed to simulate the full-process dynamics of floating debris driven by large-scale flood waves in real world. In this work, a fully coupled model is developed for simulating the full-process interactive movements of vehicles driven by flash flood hydrodynamics, from entrainment, transport to deposition. The proposed coupled modeling system consists of a finite volume shock-capturing hydrodynamic model solving the 2D shallow water equations and a 3D discrete element method (DEM) model. The proposed two-way coupling approach estimates the hydrostatic and hydrodynamic forces acting on solid objects using the water depth and velocity predicted by the hydrodynamic model; the resulting counter forces on the fluid flow are then considered by adding extra source terms in the hydrodynamic model. A multi-sphere method is further embedded in the DEM model to better represent vehicle shapes. New calculation modules are further implemented to represent the vehicle entrainment, contact and stopping motions. The coupled model is applied to reproduce a flash flood event hit Boscastle in the UK in 2004. Over 100 vehicles were moved and carried downstream by the highly transient flood flow. The model well predicts the hydrodynamics, interactive transport process and the final locations of vehicles. The proposed coupled model provides a new tool for simulating large-scale flash flooding processes, including debris dynamics.