ABSTRACT

Numerical modelling of natural phenomena, particularly weather-related which are the 90 % of global disasters, is essential to analyse and predict hazardous situations for the people, the economy and the environment. The evolution of these numerical tool, from simple one-dimensional to complex three-dimensional models, to simulate hydrological hazards like floods, mass movements, and avalanches is challenging, especially those in which the fluid can be characterized as non–Newtonian flows.This PhD thesis focusses on the extension of Iber, a depth-averaged two-dimensional hydrodynamic numerical tool, to simulate non–Newtonian shallow flows. To that end, a particular numerical scheme based on an upwind discretisation to ensure for the non–velocity-dependent terms of the shear stresses has been developed to counterbalance the pressure forces. This ensures the stop of the fluid according to the rheological properties of the fluid, even in steep slopes and complex geometries. The code besides being validated and applied in theoretical, analytical, and in common and non–common non–Newtonian shallow flows in real situations, it has been fully integrated in the graphical user interface of Iber. This facilitates the model build-up, setup and results visualization converting the new code in a software suite fully operational for all practitioners.

Committee

• President: Dr. Fernando Salazar
• Secretary: Dr. Martí Sánchez
• Member: Dr. David López
• PhD advisor: Dr. Ernest Bladé

PHD CANDIDATE

Mr. Marcos Sanz is a research engineer at CIMNE's River Dynamics and Hydrologic Engineering group (FLUMEN Institute), part of the Machine Learning and models in Hydro-Environemental Engineering research cluster.