Laboratory experiments and shallow water simulations of gravity currents moving on flat and up-sloping beds

Lock released gravity currents moving on up-sloping beds are investigated by laboratory experiments and shallow water simulations. The bed’s angles were varied and the experiments were used to test two shallow water models. The gravity current’s speed decreased as the bed’s slope increased and for the highest bed’s upslope the gravity current was observed to stop before reaching the end of the tank. The developed two layer shallow water model accounts for both the entrainment between the two layers and the free surface. In addition it accounts for the space-time variations of the density in a gravity current. The effect of density gradients in the simulation of gravity currents was investigated by comparing the numerical results of both the present and Adduce et al. (2012) shallow water model with the measurements. A better agreement between experiments and simulations was found when the present shallow water model is used.