Comparison between open channel flow models in natural rivers

The present paper is aimed at testing a new model (Sole and Zuccaro [10]), which simulates open channel flows, through the comparison with two widely used softwares: Mike 11 of the Danish Hydraulic Institute Software and Hec-Ras of the US Army Corps of Engineers. The simulations have been carried out both on a tract of a natural river and on a rectangular channel. The subcritical and supercritical currents have been simulated into the natural river-bed, whereas some restrictions and an hydraulic jump have been simulated into the channel. For each configuration, different discharges have been utilized, whereas the Manning parameter has been always set at 29mli3/s. For the last model a steady simulation has been carried out, but for the others the simulations were unsteady: the initial discharge is the tenth part of the fixed discharge and the simulations finished after the initial unsteady period. 1 Models description