Study of the comprehensive risk analysis of dam-break flooding based on the numerical simulation of flood routing. Part I: model development

Dam-break floods have been of increasing concern to safety engineers and decision makers. The presence of complex terrain in inundation areas multiplies the simulation difficulty of flood routing. In previous studies, representing the flood routing parameters empirically does not reflect the characteristics of flood routing, which strongly influences the accurate assessment of the dam-break consequences. The basis for carrying out dangerous reservoir reinforcement is just engineering safety, without considering the actual situation of downstream areas. In this study, a comprehensive risk analysis of the dam-break flood was implemented based on the numerical simulation of flood routing. First, coupled with the volume of fluid method, a three-dimensional k–ɛ turbulence mathematical model was developed for flood routing in complex inundation areas. Then, based on the flow parameters obtained through computational fluid dynamics modeling, the attribute measure methodology was used for the evaluation of consequences combined with the calculation of the dam-break consequences (loss of life, economic loss, social and environmental influence). Furthermore, a methodology containing the combined weight method and the technique for order performance by similarity to ideal solution method was proposed for risk ranking of dangerous reservoirs due to its logical consideration of scalar values that simultaneously account for both the best and worst alternatives. Finally, a sensitivity analysis was performed to provide information about the stability of risk ranking. The aforementioned model and methodology are applied to a case involving five reservoirs in the Haihe River Basin in China for Part II of this study. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014