Metamodeling for Uncertainty Quantification of a Flood Wave Model for Concrete Dam Breaks

Anna Kalinina, Matteo Spada, David F. Vetsch, Stefano Marelli, Calvin Whealton, Peter Burgherr and Bruno Sudret
Additional contact information
Anna Kalinina: Laboratory for Energy System Analysis, Paul Scherrer Institut, 5232 Villigen PSI, Switzerland
Matteo Spada: Laboratory for Energy System Analysis, Paul Scherrer Institut, 5232 Villigen PSI, Switzerland
David F. Vetsch: Department of Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering, ETH Zurich, Stefano-Franscini-Platz 5, 8093 Zurich, Switzerland
Stefano Marelli: Department of Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering, ETH Zurich, Stefano-Franscini-Platz 5, 8093 Zurich, Switzerland
Calvin Whealton: Laboratory for Energy System Analysis, Paul Scherrer Institut, 5232 Villigen PSI, Switzerland
Peter Burgherr: Laboratory for Energy System Analysis, Paul Scherrer Institut, 5232 Villigen PSI, Switzerland
Bruno Sudret: Department of Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering, ETH Zurich, Stefano-Franscini-Platz 5, 8093 Zurich, Switzerland

Energies, 2020, vol. 13, issue 14, 1-25

Abstract: Uncertainties in instantaneous dam-break floods are difficult to assess with standard methods (e.g., Monte Carlo simulation) because of the lack of historical observations and high computational costs of the numerical models. In this study, polynomial chaos expansion (PCE) was applied to a dam-break flood model reflecting the population of large concrete dams in Switzerland. The flood model was approximated with a metamodel and uncertainty in the inputs was propagated to the flow quantities downstream of the dam. The study demonstrates that the application of metamodeling for uncertainty quantification in dam-break studies allows for reduced computational costs compared to standard methods. Finally, Sobol’ sensitivity indices indicate that reservoir volume, length of the valley, and surface roughness contributed most to the variability of the outputs. The proposed methodology, when applied to similar studies in flood risk assessment, allows for more generalized risk quantification than conventional approaches.

Keywords: risk assessment; dam-break flood; uncertainty quantification; global sensitivity analysis; metamodeling; polynomial chaos expansion (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/13/14/3685/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/13/14/3685/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jeners:v:13:y:2020:i:14:p:3685-:d:386286

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().