Solução das equações de Saint-Venant por um modelo de elementos finitos espaço-temporal

Abstract

The partial differential equations of Saint-Venant are the mathematical expression used to describe phenomena of free surface transient flows being an example of pratical importance the flood wave routing in rivers. The main purpose of this thesis is to present a solution for such equations through the use of a modal of finite elements in space and time. The model adopts quadratic interpolation functions in space and linear functions in time. The procedure produces an implicit scheme in which the non-linear terms are initially approximated by their known values at the previous time step and then corrected by the means of an iterative scheme. The efficiency of this scheme was tested by its application to simple problems with known solutions and, as a final test, the model was applied to simulate a real case of flood wave routing in the Uruguai River.