Accuracy of kinematic wave and diffusion wave approximations for timeindependent flows Academic Article uri icon

abstract

  • Errors in the kinematic wave and diffusion wave approximations for timeindependent (or steadystate) cases of channel flow were derived for three types of boundary conditions: zero flow at the upstream end, and critical flow depth and zero depth gradient at the downstream end. The diffusion wave approximation was found to be in excellent agreement with the dynamic wave approximation, with errors in the range 12% for values of KF02 ( 7.5), where K is the kinematic wave number and F 0 is the Froude number. Even for small values of KF02 (e.g. KF 20 = 0.75), the errors were typically less than 15%. The accuracy of the diffusion wave approximation was greatly influenced by the downstream boundary condition. The error of the kinematic wave approximation was found to be less than 13% in the region 0.1 x 0.95 for KF02 = 7.5 and was greater than 30% for smaller values of KF02 ( 0.75). This error increased with strong downstream boundary control. Copyright 1995 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd

published proceedings

  • Hydrological Processes

author list (cited authors)

  • Singh, V. P., & Aravamuthan, V.

citation count

  • 23

complete list of authors

  • Singh, VP||Aravamuthan, V

publication date

  • August 1995

publisher