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Force coefficients for modelling the drift of a victim of river drowning

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Abstract

The global annual death toll due to drowning is of the order of 105. Rescue and search operations in urban rivers show a low rate of success. Operational computational drift models have been developed for marine environments but not for the case of river drowning. In the latter case, no scale separation occurs between the body and flow length scales. To model them, three hydrodynamic force coefficients of representative bodies, such as drag, side and lift coefficients, are needed. So far, their value was not characterized for the typical positioning of the body of a drowning victim. In this work, we used full-scale laboratory experiments to identify the range of value of these hydrodynamic coefficients based on 249 tests conducted in a wind tunnel. Observations in the air can be transferred to water environment thanks to flow similarity. For the typical body positioning of a drowning victim, the drag coefficient was found to vary in the range 0.5–1.2. Changing the yaw angle of the body, induces variations in the drag coefficient by about 50%. Considering loose clothes instead of tight clothes leads to an increase in the drag coefficient by about 30%, whereas adding a backpack has a limited influence (less than 5%). With the available experimental setup, it has been difficult to detect distinctive patterns and trends for the side and lift coefficients. This study is part of a multidisciplinary effort for developing scientific knowledge and technologies contributing to a reduction of drowning-induced fatalities in rivers.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank Dr. Raphael Dubois for his support and expertise in the use of the wind tunnel and its equipment.

Funding

The authors declare that no funds, grants, or other support were received during the preparation of this manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Hydraulics in Environmental and Civil Engineering (HECE), Research Unit Urban and Environmental Engineering (UEE), University of Liège, 4000, Liège, Belgium

    C. Delhez, S. Erpicum, M. Pirotton, P. Archambeau & B. Dewals

  2. Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering, University of Liège, 4000, Liège, Belgium

    T. Andrianne

  3. Univ Lyon, INSA Lyon, Ecole Centrale de Lyon, Université Claude Bernard Lyon I, CNRS, LMFA, UMR 5509, 20 Avenue Albert Einstein, 69621, Villeurbanne, France

    N. Riviere

  4. DIVA, Art Archaeology Heritage, University of Liege, 4020, Liege, Belgium

    P. Hallot

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  1. C. Delhez
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Contributions

All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection and analysis were performed by Clément Delhez, Benjamin Dewals and Thomas Andrianne. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Clément Delhez and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Delhez, C., Andrianne, T., Erpicum, S. et al. Force coefficients for modelling the drift of a victim of river drowning. Nat Hazards 120, 6245–6273 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-024-06498-0

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