FLOTTE - FLOod and TransporT Equations

Project Summary:

The overall objective of the research program is to develop a numerical tool able to represent, in urban area, flood and transport (sediment, debris and vehicle) propagation as the potential feedback from transport to the flow.

Several directions are identified:

• Shallow water and transport models coupling Transport and shallow water equations are hyperbolic models based on wave propagation. When the difference between the wave speed characterising both models is significant, strong coupling is difficult as stability and/or numerical diffusion arise due to the difference on the required timestep. The team proposes to develop a coupling algorithm that suits for all the coupling configurations, regardless of each model propagation speed.

• Upscaling of transport model modelling mudflows in urban area is too expensive (even using parallel computation) for an operational purpose. In the mean time, the upscaling approach developed at LEMON allow to develop porosity-based model with a reduction of the computational cost by 2 or 3 orders of magnitude. A direction supported by FLOTTE is the development of upscaled model for water-sediment mixture modeling

• Sensitivity analysis to reach operational standards modelling transport yields to be able to determine the position and/or characteristics of the debris prior to the flood. From an operational point of view, these data remain frequently unavailable. A sensitivity analysis is planned to link the accuracy required on the debris characterisation with the on of the flow/risk expected by the operational actors.

In France: 

• Antoine Rousseau, researcher, FLOTTE coordinator, project-team LEMON, Inria Branch at the University of Montpellier, Inria

• Katia Aït-Ameur, project-team LEMON, Inria Branch at the University of Montpellier, Inria

• Pascal Finaud-Guyot, researcher, University of Montpellier, project-team LEMON, Inria Branch at the University of Montpellier, Inria

In Chile:

• Cristián Escauriaza, researcher, FLOTTE coordinator, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile

• Sebastián Nash, PhD student, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile

• Luis Martí, researcher, Inria Chile

• https://team.inria.fr/lemon/flotte/ 

• https://inria.cl/es/flotte-comprendiendo-las-inundaciones-urbanas