River2D Two-Dimensional Depth Averaged Model of River Hydrodynamics and Fish Habitat

River2D Tutorial The Basics

by J. Blackburn and P. M. Steffler University of Alberta September, 2002

1.0

Introduction This tutorial is provided for you to learn the basics of River2D, the two-dimensional depth averaged model of river hydrodynamics and fish habitat. This tutorial is one in a series. Once youve completed this tutorial, you may consider trying one or more of the other tutorials. These tutorial cover the following topics: Fish Habitat Analyses River Ice Modelling Transient Flow Modelling Boundary Extraction and Mesh Merging

All of these tutorials can be obtained from the River2D website. The address for the website is www.river2d.ca In this particular tutorial, you will learn how to use River2D to obtain a steady state hydrodynamic solution. This will be accomplished using topographic data obtained along the Kananaskis River near Fortress Mountain in Alberta. Along the way, you will also learn how to perform the following: Set or change the boundary conditions for the problem at hand Use River2D to obtain a steady state hydrodynamic solution Use various available display options for viewing and presenting model information Make changes to the computational mesh in order to improve the hydrodynamic solution Extract cross sectional data from the 2D topography

The files for this tutorial should be found in the same folder in which you found this file: R2D_theBasics. The complete path to this folder will vary, depending on where you put this folder after unzipping R2D_theBasics.zip.

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It is recommended that you make a hardcopy of this tutorial so that you may maximize the River2D window on your computer screen as you follow along. However, River2D displays many things in colour so you may want refer to the electronic version of this tutorial if your hardcopy is black and white. If you have comments or questions regarding this tutorial, please feel free to contact us. Julia Blackburn Peter Steffler 2.0 The River2D environment The River2D program is one of a suite of four programs which also includes R2D_Bed, R2D_Mesh and R2D_Ice. The general modeling procedure is to develop a bed topography file (a text file with a .bed file name extension) from surveyed field data, and then edit and refine the data using R2D_Bed. The resulting .bed file is then used in R2D_Mesh to develop a computational discretization, also called a mesh. Once the mesh is built and the boundary conditions for the problem are set (no flow vertical walls, inflow discharge, and outflow water surface elevation), an input file for River2D can be created. Input files for River2D have the file extension .cdg. Use of R2D_Ice is only required when modelling flow under an ice cover. In this case, an ice topography file (a text file with a .ice file name extension) would be developed using R2D_Ice and then loaded into River2D once the .cdg file for the domain has been opened. To get started, we will launch River2D and open the .cdg file for the Fortress site. Email: [email protected] Email:[email protected]

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Launch River2D. Choose File > Open and navigate to the R2D_theBasics folder. Select the .cdg file for this the Fortress site. It is named fort.cdg. Note: it may take a while for this file to load depending on the speed of your computer.

At this point, you should see the following in your River2D window.

Before getting into the details of what is being displayed in the River2D viewing window, we shall go over the different components of the River2D screen. The first item is the Menu Bar

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which has many of the standard windows operations and additional operations that are specific to River2D.

Some of the commands in the menu bar are reproduced in the Toolbar.

The River2D screen also has a Title Bar which displays the currently opened file, in this case, fort.cdg.

The last screen item is the status bar, located at the bottom of the River2D screen.

Once a .cdg file has been loaded, the status bar displays the x and y coordinates of the position of the mouse pointer. In addition to the x and y coordinates, one other parameter is given in the status bar. This parameter is the same as that selected using the

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contour/colour command (found under the Display menu). This parameter defaults to the bed elevation if it has not been specified using the contour/colour command. Now we shall focus on the contents of the River2D viewing window. By default, River2D displays two items once a file is loaded: the computational boundary and the waters edge. To see the distinction between these two items, toggle the display of the waters edge. This can be done by selecting the Waters Edge command found under Display Menu. As you can see, the waters edge consists of a blue line. This blue line represents the boundary between wet and dry areas in the model. It can also be thought of a line of zero water depth. If the Waters Edge command is toggled on while the model is running, it is updated to reflect areas of drying or inundation in the solution. Now toggle the display so that the waters edge is not visible, so that the River2D window appears as follows.

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Outflow Boundary

No flow Boundaries

Inflow Boundary

The item left in the window is the computational boundary. As you can see, this boundary consists of red, blue and green lines. The colours represent different types of boundaries. The red line represents a no cross-flow or vertical wall condition while the green and blue lines indicate inflow and outflow boundaries respectively. Unlike the waters edge, there is no command to toggle the display of the computational boundary and therefore it is always visible.

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The .cdg file The .cdg file used in this tutorial, fort.cdg was developed using a bed topography file, fort.bed, and a mesh file, fort.msh. These files can also be found in R2D_theBasics folder, as you may wish to go through the process of creating fort.cdg yourself. In this tutorial, we will go through the process of creating a .cdg file when we learn how to update the computational mesh using R2D_Mesh. The .cdg file contains all of the information necessary to obtain a flow solution in River2D. This includes the computational mesh, which is defined in terms of computational nodes and their connectivity in the Triangulated Irregular Network (TIN). Each computational node is represented by a line in the .cdg file and consists of a node number (integer), x-coordinate (floating point number), y-coordinate (floating point number), bed elevation (floating point number), and bed roughness height (floating point number). In addition, every node line contains information regarding the initial conditions that are required as the initial guess in the iterative solution procedure in River2D. This information consists of x discharge intensity (floating point number), y discharge intensity (floating point number), and water depth (floating point number). The .cdg file also contains boundary condition information and default values for all of the run parameters required for River2D. (These can be changed by manually editing the .cdg file or in the River2D environment as will be demonstrated later). The .cdg file does not contain any habitat or ice cover information. If you open fort.cdg in a text editor, you will notice that the initial x and y discharge intensities are 0 at every node (They are the last two entries on every node line). This is because fort.cdg was created using R2D_Mesh. When a .cdg file is created with R2D_Mesh, the initial discharge intensities (or velocity components) are assumed to be zero. R2D_Mesh provides initial water depths at every node based on the water surface elevation at the outflow boundary and a user supplied estimate of the water surface elevation at the inflow boundary. If the loaded .cdg file is

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resaved after running the model, these initial conditions will be replaced by the newly solved depths and discharge intensities.

4.0

Using River2Ds hydrodynamic model operations In hydrodynamic modeling, the normal sequence is to calibrate the model using measured water level data at a known discharge and then use the calibrated model to simulate the flow for a range of discharges. In this tutorial, we will assume that the bed roughness values in fort.cdg have already been calibrated and that we are now ready to simulate the flow, for a given discharge, using our calibrated model. 4.1 Setting Boundary Conditions Before we can run the model, we must set the boundary conditions for the flow situation we want to simulate. For steady simulations, boundary conditions typically take the form of constant total discharge at inflow sections and fixed water surface elevations at outflow sections. In River2D, inflow and outflow boundary sections have the generic name of flow boundary. They are called flow boundaries to distinguish them from no flow boundaries. The inflow and outflow boundaries (and their boundary conditions) for this problem were defined in R2D_Mesh prior to creating fort.cdg. So we use this opportunity to learn how to edit flow boundaries. 1 2 Choose Flow > Edit Flow Boundary Using the mouse, click on the inflow boundary (green line).

This will open the Edit Flow Boundary dialog, as shown below.

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The information used to define a flow boundary includes: a starting node (along the boundary), an ending node (also along the boundary), the type of flow boundary (inflow or outflow), and information relevant to type of boundary (e.g. total discharge for an inflow boundary). Flow boundaries are always defined walking

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around the boundary with the computational mesh to the left. Therefore flow boundaries on the external boundary are defined in the counter clockwise direction while flow boundaries on an internal boundary are defined in the clockwise direction. The first portion of this dialog is used for modifying the extent and/or location of the flow boundary. If we wanted to move or resize this flow boundary, we would need to change the starting and/or ending nodes. The easiest way to determine the nodes numbers for new end points is to display the nodes numbers. This is accomplished by selecting Display > Node Numbers. The rest of the dialog is used for specifying the type of boundary condition for this flow boundary: inflow, outflow, or noflow. However, as the dialog suggests, selecting a noflow condition will cause the flow boundary to be removed. River2D only stores boundary conditions associated with flow boundaries. Any boundary elements not associated with a flow boundary are by default no flow boundaries. As you can see, this flow boundary has a constant inflow discharge of 2 cms. An inflow boundary condition can also be specified using a discharge hydrograph (discharge versus time in table form). The hydrograph option is typically used in transient simulations. At this point, 3 4 5 Confirm that, in your version, this flow boundary is indeed a fixed discharge inflow boundary. Also, verify that the value for the fixed discharge is 2 cms. Press the OK button to close this dialog box.

We will now have a look at the downstream boundary conditions. 6 7 Choose Flow > Edit Flow Boundary Click on the outflow boundary (blue line)

The Edit Flow Boundary dialog should appear as follows.

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The state of the dialog box indicates that this outflow boundary has a fixed water surface elevation of 199.2 m. There are three other possible options for setting downstream boundary conditions: an outflow hydrograph (elevation versus in table form), a rating curve (discharge versus elevation, also in table form), and a depth-unit

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discharge relationship (in the form of an equation). Of the four options, the first three will apply the same water level across the width of an outflow boundary. In some cases, the model will have difficulties converging when the same elevation is forced across an outflow boundary. When this occurs, the forth and last option, a depth-unit discharge relationship, may help the model with convergence. This option forces a weir type flow through each boundary element in the outflow boundary. This allows the elements within the flow boundary to respond individually to the flow in the domain, which typically results in a water surface elevation that varies across the outflow section. Outflow boundaries are displayed using a blue line except those specified using depth-unit discharge relationship, which are displayed using a yellow (gold) line. In a steady simulation, a constant water surface elevation is usually used. The outflow hydrograph and rating curve options are typically used in transient simulations. And as explained above, the depth unit-discharge relationship is a trouble shooting option which can be used in either steady or transient analyses. Since we are going to use River2D to obtain a steady state solution, the fixed water surface elevation at the downstream end is appropriate. At this time, 8 9 4.2 Confirm that this outflow boundary is specified as a constant water surface elevation of 199.2m. Press the OK button to close this dialog box.

Running the Hydrodynamic Model Now we will learn how to run the 2D hydrodynamic model in River2D to obtain a steady state solution. To start, we shall open the Run Steady dialog box. 1 Choose Flow > Run Steady The Run Steady dialog box should appear as follows.

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This dialog contains a list a values. Some of these values are user input run parameters (all of the white edit boxes) while the others report values associated with model performance and model convergence. The specific uses of all the values in this dialog are detailed below. The "present time" value is the point in pseudo time at which the solution is currently running or has stopped at. This value can be reset before the start of a subsequent run. "Final time" is the time at which execution of the hydrodynamic model will be stopped. Actually, execution is halted when the present time is greater than the final time. "Time increment" is the size of the current time step. It may be set at the start of a run. If it is too long, the program will automatically adjust it downward. Over the course of the iterations this value normally increases steadily. Occasionally, it will decrease dramatically and then gradually grow again. If this happens
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frequently, there may be a problem with the boundary conditions and/or the mesh. "Max time increment" is a user specified setting for the largest time step allowed. This provides an extra measure of control on the convergence process. "Solution change" is the relative overall change in the solution variables over the latest iteration. The size of this value relative to the goal solution change will govern how quickly the time increment increases. Once the maximum time increment is reached, the solution change should decrease with each iteration. When this becomes sufficiently small (approx 0.00001), the solution can be considered converged. "Goal solution change" is the user specified target relative overall solution change. The bigger this value, the bigger the time increments that will be used and hopefully the fewer the number of iterations required to reach steady state. However, nonlinear instabilities are more likely to arise, leading to more frequent episodes of time step reduction followed by gradual increase phenomenon. "Log file name" is the name of the text file to which a record of the program execution is written. This record includes the time, time increment, solution change for each iteration. If an iteration is rejected, further information which may help localize the problem is also written. The log file is always appended to and never overwritten. It resides in the same directory as the current .cdg file. "Total Inflow" and Total Outflow represent the total discharge flowing into and out of the model, respectively. One characteristic of a steady state flow condition is that these two values should be equal. In practice, due to approximation errors, they will not be precisely equal. Instead, there will be a slight difference (relative to the total discharge) between the two values. The progress of the solution toward steady state can be observed by tracking these numbers. Note that in some cases the total discharge moving through the model may not be equal to the discharge specified at the inflow boundary. When this occurs, it is generally due to the

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location of the downstream boundary; turbulent eddies may cause additional inflow. "Update display every ____ time steps" is used to set how often the display updates. As drawing the display takes some processor time away from the computations, it may be advisable to limit the number of times that the screen is redrawn. "Current step #" keeps track of the number of time step iterations since the start of the latest run. Before pressing the Run button, we will set up the display so that the velocity magnitude in the model is displayed in the viewing window as a colour fill map. In a colour fill map, the colour spectrum (in this case, red is highest and blue is lowest) is scaled to a specified parameter. 1 Choose Display > Contour/colour The Colour/Contour dialog box will appear as follows.

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2 3 4

In the Contour/Shade drop down list box select Velocity Magnitude. Select the Display Colour Shading and the Clip Colour Shading to Waters Edge options. The colour spectrum in a colour fill map can be scaled either automatically or manually. If the colour spectrum is scaled automatically, then the maximum and minimum limits are set using the maximum and minimum values in the model (for the specified parameter). On the other hand, the limits are set manually, then the values above and below the set limits are assigned no colour (white). Here, we will use automatic scaling. Therefore, in the Colour Range group box select the Automatic radio option. Click the OK button to close the dialog box.

For starters, we will leave all of the parameters set to their default values. Once calculations have begun, you will notice the following changes in the Run Steady dialog box. The Run button caption will change to Stop. When the value in the Current iteration # box increases to 1, the Present Time box will still read 0. For this first iteration, the actual solution change (value in the Solution change box) is 3.6 times greater than the goal solution change (value in the Goal solution change box). When the actual change is greater than 1.25 times the goal change, the current iteration is rejected and a new time step increment is calculated (based on the unsuccessful time step increment and the ratio of the goal to actual change) and a new iteration is attempted. In this case, only one failed attempt occurs before the solution starts to progress and the Present Time box starts to increase. In some problems, you may find that a number of iterations may be rejected before a small enough time step is found that will allow the solution to progress. With every iteration after the first, the time step increment will increase after each iteration until the maximum time step increment of 100 is reached.

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As the solution progresses, you should notice the following changes in the River2D viewing window. After every iteration, the waters edge will update in the viewing window to reflect the changes in the solution. At first, these updates will appear negligible; however, as the time step increment increases, the updates will be more dramatic. The velocity magnitude colour fill map will go from being one colour to many colours once the water in the model starts to move.

At this time, press the Run button and look for the changes described above. Let the solution proceed to the final time of 1000 at which time the Run Steady box should appear as follows.

At this point, you should notice that the solution has not yet converged. Two items in the Run Steady box indicate lack of convergence. The first indicator is the value in the Solution

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change box. Only when this value becomes sufficiently small, approximately 0.00001 or less, can the solution be considered as converged. The second indicator is the total discharge moving through the system. Theoretically, the total inflow and total outflow should be equal for a steady state flow condition. In practice, due to approximation errors, these values will never be exactly equal but will rather have a small difference (relative to the inflow boundary condition discharge) when convergence is achieved. At the present time, the total outflow is close to twice the total inflow. We will now set the parameters in the run box so that the solution converges. Set the value in the Final time box to 25000 and increase the value in the Max time increment box to 500. Redrawing the display take some processor time away from the model computations. Therefore, for the rest of the computations we will limit the number of times the screen is updated to once every 10 time steps iterations. To accomplish this set the value in the Update display every ____ time steps to 10. When these three parameters are set, press the Run button. Once the model approaches the final time of 25000, start to watch the values in the Total Inflow and Total Outflow boxes. When the model halts, the Run Steady box should appear as follows.

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At this point, the solution has effectively converged. The value in the Solution change box is now very small, less than 0.00001, and the Total Inflow is approximately equal to the Total Outflow with less than a 0.2% difference. Another indicator that the solution has converged is that, the Total Inflow and Total Outflow have remained relatively constant for at least the last 10 iterations. Now that we have obtained solution convergence, press the to close the Run Steady box.

Note: The size of the difference between total inflow and total outflow is a function of the mesh discretization. In cases where you are not happy with this error, you will need a computational mesh with a finer discretization. 5.0 Extracting cross section data from the 2D domain In River2D, the user has the option to extract data in various forms from the model to an output file. These forms include extracting
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information from all of the nodes, from points within a user defined grid, or from points along a user defined section (line). All three of these formats are useful when comparing model results to field measurements. In this part of the tutorial, we are going to learn how to extract model data along a cross section in the model. To learn about the other methods for extracting data, refer to the River2D users manual. With the converged solution in your River2D window (or fortfinal.cdg if you are just joining in now), use the Scale to Fit command under the Display menu. We are going to extract cross section information from the model from the channel to the left of the island, which we will call Section 1. To extract cross section data in River2D, we use the Extract section to csv file command found under the Display menu. This command allows the user to define a cross section by two endpoints with specified point spacing and output the section information to a csv (comma separated values) file. In the csv file, there is one line for every point along the section. Each line contains the point number (integer), the x coordinate (floating point number), the y coordinate (floating point number) and one parameter for that particular point (floating point number). The parameter in the file is the one that is selected in the Contour/colour dialog box. At Section 1, we are going to extract first the bed elevation and then the velocity magnitude.

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1 2 3

Choose Display > Contour/colour. In the Contour/colour dialog box change the Colour/Contour variable to Bed Elevation and then press the OK button. Choose Display > Extract section to csv file. This opens the Extent and Spacing dialog box. Fill in the fields so that the box appears as shown below.

By filling the dialog this way, we are saying Extract information along a line starting at point 1 (x1 = 4960, y1 = 4980) and ending at point 2 (x2 = 4985, y2 = 4980) with a point spacing of 0.5. 4 5 Click the OK button. At this point, a Save As dialog opens. Since the bed elevation is the parameter selected in the Contour/colour dialog box, it will be the parameter in the csv file. Therefore, navigate to the R2D_theBasics folder and save the file as my_bed_elevation.csv.

Now that we have defined the points (x,y) in the section, we can output the velocity magnitude to another csv file using the Extract points to csv file command. This command allows the user to create a new csv file based on the points in another csv file. Therefore, we can create a new csv file containing the velocity magnitude at the x and y coordinates in my_bed_elevation.csv.

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6 7 8

Open the Colour/Contour dialog box and change the Colour/Contour variable to Velocity Magnitude. Choose Display > Extract points to csv file. In the file browsing dialog box, navigate to the R2D_theBasics folder. Select my_bed_elevation.csv and then click the Open button. At this point, a Save As dialog opens. As this csv file will contain the velocity magnitude at each point in the section, we will save it as my_velocity_magnitude.csv.

10 Launch a spreadsheet program and open my_bed_elevation.csv. The first several lines of the file should look similar to those below.

Notice that some of the numbers in the first column are negative. This because any point in the section which is not inside the computational mesh will have a negative point number. As you can see, points outside the mesh are assigned a bed elevation of 100.

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11 Open my_velocity_magnitude.csv. It should look very similar to my_bed_elevation.csv except that the last column contains the velocity magnitude rather than the bed elevation. If you were to plot station (x coordinate) versus parameter, for both parameters (not including the points outside the mesh), on to a single plot, your plot should look similar to the one below.

Notice that the bed and velocity data are very jagged. This is because the mesh is quite coarse in this region. In the next section, we will learn how to refine the mesh and improve the computational solution. 6.0 Changing mesh density to improve the solution In this part of the tutorial, you will learn how to increase the mesh density to improve the flow solution in River2D. This will involve use of Mesh Edit menu in River2D. The Mesh Edit menu contains some basic mesh editing commands which have been implemented primarily for mesh refinement. R2D_Mesh, the mesh editing component of the River2D package, allows the user to perform more complex mesh edits. If you wish to learn more about R2D_Mesh and mesh editing, you are referred to the R2D_Mesh users manual, which can be obtained from the River2D website.

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If you still have the River2D window set to display the velocity magnitude using a colour fill, the converged solution for fort.cdg should appear as follows. (Note: Clip to Waters Edge has been selected.)

(If you wish to follow along from this point, but you have not gone through the process of running the model in section 4.0, you can still do so. Open fortfinal.cdg, which is found in the R2D_theBasics folder. Return to section 4.2 and follow the steps to set the display as it appears above.)

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Use one of the map scale tools to zoom in on the area to the left of the large island, so that you can see the detail of the velocity magnitude colour map as shown below.

Move the mouse around on the colour map and monitor the velocity magnitudes on the Status Bar. Notice that the velocity is quite high where the map is shaded red. Although regions of high velocity can occur; however, the diamond shape pattern in the shading may be indicative of a region where the mesh density is to low. To see if this is a possibility, we will have a look at the

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computational mesh in this area. Choose Display > Mesh so that the River2D window appears as follows.

Notice that the mesh density drops off in the region where the velocity magnitudes are very high. To try to improve the solution in this region, we will first refine the mesh and then rerun the model to obtain a new solution. This will be accomplished using the River2D commands found under the Mesh Edit menu. To make any changes to the mesh, we must first load the original bed topography that was used to create the mesh into the River2D environment. This is because each new node inserted into the mesh

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must obtain its bed elevation and roughness values by linear interpolating from the bed topography. The bed topography is loaded using the Load Bed File command found under the Mesh Edit menu. 1 2 Choose Mesh Edit> Load Bed File. In the file browsing dialog box, navigate to the R2D_theBasics folder. Select fort.bed.

At this point the River2D viewing window should appear as follows.

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Notice the thin grey lines that have appeared in the viewing window. These are contour lines of the bed topography. The presence of the bed contours is an indication that the bed topography has loaded correctly. The contour interval for the bed topography map can be set in the Mesh Edit Options dialog, which is accessed through the Options menu. Now that we know that the bed topography has loaded correctly, choose Display>Bed Contours to toggle off the display of the bed topography contour map. There are a number of ways to add nodes to the domain to increase the density of the mesh. Here we will accomplish this using the Add Floating Node command. 1 Choose Mesh Edit> Add Floating Node. At this point, the cursor should change to a cross hair to indicate the change to the Add Floating Node mode. Using your mouse, select points on the mesh where the mesh density needs improving in a manner similar to what is shown below.

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3 4 5 6

Once you have finished adding nodes, choose Mesh Edit> Triangulate to incorporate the new nodes into the mesh. Repeat steps 2 and 3 if you want to add more nodes. Choose Mesh Edit > Smooth. Repeat until the number of nodes is no longer changing (around 10 times). To check the number of nodes, Choose Mesh Edit>Mesh Information. This brings up the information box show below. In addition to the number of nodes and number of elements in the mesh, this information box also contains another value. This value is called the Mesh Quality Index (QI) and it

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provides the user with a measure of the quality of the triangles in the mesh. The triangle quality is calculated as the ratio of triangle area to the circumcircle area (the circle which passes through the three points defining the triangle. The value reported in the Mesh Information box is, in fact, the minimum triangle quality of all of the triangles in the mesh.

Once the number of nodes is no longer changing, the mesh in the problem region should appear similar to what is shown below.

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At this point, save the refined mesh under a new name. Choose File>Save As and navigate to the R2D_theBasics folder and type my_fort.cdg in file name field. Click the Save button.

We now have a newly created .cdg file called my_fort.cdg which incorporates the changes in the mesh. At this point, we will run my_fort.cdg to obtain a new flow solution. (If you wish to follow from this point but have not created my_fort.cdg, you can do so by using fortnew.cdg instead.)

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10 With my_fort.cdg loaded into the River2D environment, open the Run Steady dialog box. 11 Set the present time to 0, set the final time to 5000 and set the max time increment to 100. 12 Press the Run button. Once the model stops, you should find that the solution has converged. At this point, we can re-examine the solution in the area where the density of the mesh was increased. Zoom in on the problem area. The colour map of the velocity magnitude should appear similar to the one shown below.

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As you can see, the velocity is still higher in the area where the mesh density has been increased. However, it is now possible to have more confidence in the solution in this region. We can also observe the improvement to the solution by comparing pre and post refinement cross section data. To accomplish this, follow the steps outlined in Section 5 and save the bed elevation and velocity magnitude cross sections to bed_elevation_new.csv and velocity_magnitude_new.csv. The plot for the new cross section data should appear similar to the one below. Notice that the velocity distribution is much smoother than it was previously. Also, the maximum velocity in the channel is not quite as high as it was prior to refinement.

There are probably other areas in the Fortress site where the solution would benefit from increasing the mesh density; however, for the purpose of this tutorial, we will accept the current solution. Increasing the mesh density has the effect of slowing the computation time for each time step. Therefore, in the mesh design process, there comes a point where benefits of increasing a meshs density become too costly in terms of computational effort. Choose File > Save as and save the converged solution under the file name my_fortfinal.cdg.

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7.0

Presenting your results As shown throughout this tutorial, the colour fill map is an effective visualization tool. In River2D, there are two additional display features that may also be helpful for visualizing the model. These are the contour map and the vector plot. In River2D, the user can display a vector plot of velocity or discharge intensity using the Vector command. To display a contour map, the user must access the Contour/colour command. As a result, the user can create a contour map of any of the parameter in the Contour/colour Dialog. As examples, we will display the bed elevation contour map of the Fortress site bed topography and a vector plot of the velocity results. 1 With my_fortfinal.cdg (or fortnewfinal.cdg if you are just joining in) loaded in River2D, set the display so that only the computational boundary is visible and open the Contour/colour dialog. In the Colour/Contour Variable drop down list box select Bed Elevation. Select the Display Contour Lines option. Once you choose to display contour lines, you must choose a contour interval value. For the Fortress site, the bed elevation ranges from about 198 m to about 200m. Therefore, a contour interval of 0.25 m is probably reasonable. In the Contour Interval box enter the value 0.25. Click the OK button.

2 3 4

If you zoom in on the region around the large island, you should see the following.

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As you can see, contour values are not shown on the map. However, they may be found by pointing the cursor at any line and reading the parameter value from the Status Bar. The vector display is independent from the other display options and may overlay a contour or colour fill display. The combination of depth shown using a colour spectrum map and velocity shown as vectors is a particularly effective way to visualize the overall flow field. Therefore, we will create a velocity vector plot in combination with a colour fill map of the water depth.

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Using what you have learnt thus far, change the display so that only a colour fill map of the water depth is visible. Choose Display > Vector. This opens the Vector Plot dialog box as shown below.

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In the Plot group box, choose the Velocity radio button. Notice the Vector Location group box on the right. This allows the user to indicate where the vectors are to be plotted. The At Nodes option is most useful for evaluating the solution quality. The On Grid option usually gives a better picture of the flow field. For this example, choose the On Grid radio button. The Scale option determines the length of the vectors. Set this value to 7. This means that a velocity of 1 m/s will be drawn as a vector of length 7m on the map.

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The Grid Spacing option sets distance on the map between grid points. Set this value to 3. The last option in the dialog is Minimum Depth. This option sets the minimum water depth that must be present for a vector to be drawn. Set this value to 0.05. Press the OK button to accept the chosen options and close the dialog box.

If you zoom in on the area just below the large island, your River2D display should appear similar to that below. Notice how the vector plot illustrates the flow separation around the island.

This type of combination plot is also an effective way to present your results to others. In River2D, there are a number of features that allow you to annotate your plots for presentation. These features can be accessed using the Annotation command. As an
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example, we will get the above combination plot ready for presentation. 1 Choose Display > Annotation. This opens the Annotation dialog box as show below.

For this example we will use all of the annotation options. Therefore, place a check mark beside every option. The Axes option adds a bounding box around what is currently in the viewing window and displays the coordinates of the box. The Colour Legend option shows the mapping of the colour spectrum to the parameter values and gives the name of the parameter being displayed by a colour fill. The Distance Scale option displays a scale bar in the viewing window. The field beside this option is for setting the reference distance of the scale bar. Leave this value at 10. The Vector Scale option displays a reference vector in the viewing window. The field beside this option is for setting the scale of the reference vector. Leave this value at 1.

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The Title option places a title across the top of the bounding box. Give our plot an appropriate title in the field beside this option. The Inflow Discharge and Outflow Discharge options display the current total inflow and total outflow for the model. These are displayed at the top right corner of the display. The Time option places the current model time (in seconds) in the space below the colour legend. 3 Press the OK button to accept the changes and close the dialog box. If you still have the display zoomed in on the region below the island, your River2D window should look similar to the following.

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Once your plot is presentation ready, you can use the Print command to print a copy of your plot. The Print command is set up to send whatever is displayed in the River2D viewing window to the selected printer (which includes all of the annotations). Because the shape and/or orientation of the paper may be different from the screen, the printed output may appear smaller of may include area not visible on the screen. Some trial and error (using the Print Preview command and making adjustments to the window size and shape) may be necessary to obtain the desired results on paper. You can also save your plot to an Enhanced Windows Metafile (EMF). This is accomplished using the Save As EMF command found under the file menu. An EMF is a vector based file format which is excellent for presentation purposes. Currently, the EMFs generated by this command can be imported into any Microsoft Office application that accepts image files. 8.0 Concluding Remarks At this point we conclude theBasics tutorial. This tutorial was designed to give an overview of the functionality of River2D. For more information on any of the topics covered in this tutorial, please refer to the River2D users manual. Check out the other tutorials in this series for topics not covered in this tutorial. Again, if you have any comments or questions regarding this tutorial, please contact the authors.

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