Author(s): Tommaso Lazzarin; Farhad Bahmanpouri; Silvia Barbetta; Tommaso Moramarco; Daniele P. Viero
Linked Author(s):
Keywords: Cross-sectional velocity; Bridge; River discharge; CFD modelling; Entropy
Abstract: Indirect methods to estimate flood discharges are fundamental tools to characterize river flows, especially considering the efforts needed to perform direct measures using conventional techniques. Often, water level and surface velocity are measured by monitoring stations installed on bridges, where the flow is influenced by structural elements such as piers and abutments. To assess the ability of the entropy theory to estimate the flow discharge at this kind of sites, in the present work the complex flow field at a multi-arch historical bridge is simulated with a threedimensional (3D) Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) model. The CFD results at the free surface are used as input for the entropy model, which provides an approximate reconstruction of crosssectional velocity distributions. The comparison of velocity distributions and discharge estimates, as provided by the CFD and the entropy models, allows addressing the applicability of the entropy theory in case of river flows pertarted by the presence of bridges.
Year: 2024