Abstract: Flood disasters occurred frequently in China and caused enormous damages to buildings and infrastructures due to its large impact forces. It is necessary to calculate the impact force accurately for the safety design of buildings. In this paper, a 2D numerical model based on finite volume method and central-upwind scheme is developed to calculate the impact force on structures due to dam-break flood. The model is also employed to simulate laboratory experiments of dam break flow and partial dam break flow, respectively. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed 2D model is able to calculate the impact force of dam break flow on structures accurately. However, for partial dam break flow, the calculated result of impact force is somewhat smooth as the present model could not simulate the process of actual flow turbulence, yet with the peak impact force close to physical experiment results. Compared with 3D models, the present 2D model is simple and highly efficient with the simulation result according well with measured result.

Key words: dam break flow, shallow water equation, impact force, global dam break, partial dam break, numerical simulation