Modeling urban scale coastal inundations using a coupled Discontinuous Galerkin -- Smooth Particle Hydrodynamics approach

Abstract: The accurate simulation of coastal inundations from natural phenomena such as tsunamis and storm--surges are of significant importance for urban planning, response to natural disasters and the insurance industry. Typical models employed for modelling storm--surges and tsunamis use the shallow water set of equations (SWEs) to model the propagation of waves in the open ocean. SWEs generally lose their validity and breakdown in the near shore region which necessitates the switch to full 3D Navier stokes equations. The efficient modelling of urban structures along with debris flow is quite a challenge for NS solvers based on continuum methods. In this novel effort we couple a two dimensional SWE based Discontinuous Galerkin solver with a full three dimensional smooth particle hydrodynamics solver to model coastal inundation. The coupled solver is capable of simulating debris flow at urban length scales.