Hydrodynamics of pedestrians' instability in floodwaters

Abstract. People's safety is the first objective to be fulfilled by flood risk mitigation measures, and according to existing reports on the causes of casualties, most of the fatalities are due to inappropriate behaviour such as walking or driving in floodwaters. Currently available experimental data on people instability in floodwaters suffer from a large dispersion primarily depending on the large variability of the physical characteristics of the subjects. This paper introduces a dimensionless mobility parameter θ_P for people partly immersed in flood flows, which accounts for both flood and subject characteristics. The parameter θ_P is capable of identifying a unique threshold of instability depending on a Froude number, thus reducing the scatter of existing experimental data. Moreover, a three-dimensional (3-D) numerical model describing the detailed geometry of a human body and reproducing a selection of critical pairs of water depth and velocity is presented. The numerical results in terms of hydrodynamic forces and force coefficients are analysed and discussed. Both the mobility parameter θ_P and the numerical results hint at the crucial role of the Froude number and relative submergence as the most relevant dimensionless numbers to interpret the loss of stability. Finally, the mobility parameter θ_P is compared with an analogous dimensionless parameter for vehicles' instability in floodwaters, providing a new contribution to support flood risk management and educating people.