A conceptual model of vehicles stability in flood flows

A large number of flood-related fatalities in urban areas are due to drowning of people in vehicles. Therefore, reliable models of the vulnerability of vehicles impacted by flow are necessary for risk assessment and emergency management. This paper includes the effect of the sloping terrain in a four-parameter dimensionless conceptual model of the stability of vehicles impacted by flow. A set of parameters was calibrated on the basis of experimental data from the literature in order to reproduce the average stability limits of a wide range of vehicles tested in laboratory conditions. These parameters can also be used to represent the average stability conditions of a wide variety of circulating vehicles as required in flood risk mapping.