Modeling Flow Exchanges between a Street and an Underground Drainage Pipe during Urban Floods

Modelling floods in urban areas generally requires the modelling of both surface and subsurface flows, along with the exchange discharges between these flows. These latter exchanges are studied on an experimental facility at the Ujigawa Open Laboratory of Kyoto University representing a typical urban drainage system with a single street connected through inlets to a drainage pipe located underneath. An exchange model is developed for the cases in which exchange flows are pressurized, applying a head balance between the surface and subsurface layers and using common head loss formulae. Results of the exchange model agree with experimental measurements and show that, for this experimental setup, the exchanges cannot be modelled by fitting a simple and commonly used orifice-type equation. A hydrodynamic model coupling the one-dimensional (1D) and two-dimensional (2D) shallow water equations for, respectively, the pipe and the street flows and including the analytical exchange model is used to simulate the experimental flows. The numerical model can simulate the global characteristics of both street and pipe flows but shows some discrepancies concerning local perturbations of street flow because of the exchange processes. (C) 2014 American Society of Civil Engineers.