An Experimental Study of the Run-Up Process of Breaking Bores Generated by Dam-Break Under Dry- and Wet-Bed Conditions

In this study, a series of dam-break laboratory experiments were carried out to investigate the run-up process of breaking bores under dry- and wet-bed conditions. Detailed measurements were conducted to reveal differences in the run-up hydrodynamic characteristics under these two conditions, e.g. the bore front profile, the maximum run-up height and duration, and the instantaneous bore front velocity. Two successive bores were observed under the wet-bed run-up process, while multiple bores (three bores in general) were generated during the dry-bed run-up process due to the significant bottom friction effect. A linear relationship with the uniform gradient is found between the maximum run-up height and the initial water head for both dry- and wet-bed conditions, indicating that difference in the maximum run-up height between the dry- and specified wet-bed cases or among various wet-bed cases is not sensitive to the initial water head. Under the same initial water head, although the dry-bed run-up process takes a longer duration than that of wet-bed cases, the maximum run-up height is smallest for the dry-bed case and gradually increases with the increase of the initial downstream water depth for wet-bed cases. Under the wet-bed conditions, temporal variation of the bore front run-up velocity can be classified into two stages, i.e. the acceleration stage induced by the relatively large incident bore front water depth (large onshore hydrostatic pressure gradient) and the deceleration stage governed by the offshore-directed gravity force and bottom friction. Nevertheless, due to the small incident bore front water depth, run-up process under the dry-bed conditions does not show the acceleration stage.