Towards a new friction model for shallow water equations through an interactive viscous layer

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel three-equation shallow water model incorporating an interactive viscous layer, improving the representation of viscous effects and friction in shallow water flows with applications demonstrated through numerical examples.

Contribution

It proposes a new friction law and a coupled three-equation model based on an improved velocity profile and viscous layer interaction, extending traditional shallow water models.

Findings

Model is conditionally hyperbolic.

Numerical scheme effectively captures unsteady viscous effects.

Model can simulate reverse flows and phase-lag phenomena.

Abstract

The derivation of shallow water models from Navier-Stokes equations is revisited yielding a class of two-layer shallow water models.An improved velocity profile is proposed, based on the superposition of an ideal fluid and a viscous layer inspired by the Interactive Boundary Layer interaction used in aeronautics. This leads to a new friction law which depends not only on velocity and depth but of the variations of velocity and thickness of boundary layer. The resulting system is an extended shallow water model consisting of three depth-integrated equations: the first two are mass and momentum conservation in which a slight correction on hydrostatic pressure has been made; the third one, known as von Karman equation, describes the evolution of the viscous layer. This coupled model is shown to be conditionally hyperbolic, and a Godunov-type finite volume scheme is also proposed. Several numerical examples are provided and compared to the "Multi-Layer Saint-Venant" model. They emphasize the ability of the model to deal with unsteady viscous effects. They illustrate also the phase-lag between friction and topography, and even recover possible reverse flows.