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HEC RAS 5.0.7 - 2D UNSTEADY FLOW ANALYSIS

1. Create New project
2. Choose unit as SI unit or US Customary from menu Option| Unit System
3. Go to RAS Mapper from menu GIS Tool | RAS Mapper
4. Right click on Terrains and choose create new terrain
5. A dialog box appears stating to choose projection system or continue without choosing. If your
DEM (Raster ‘.tiff’) file has projection associated with it, click NO. Otherwise, you may need to
click YES and choose appropriate projection system. ‘No’ is chosen for this tutorial.
6. Click on the “+” sign to add RASTER file

7. After choosing the file, a dialog box appears which says whether to accept the projection system
of the file. Click yes if you want the projection system of the file to appear on the RAS Mapper.
8. Click on create
9. A terrain should be created successfully

10. Save the terrain as image. Right click on Terrain|Export layer | Export current image to JPG
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11. Go to Geometry Editor. You will see that the Terrain’s already present in the geometry editor.
Whatever you create in RAS Mapper can be imported in Geometry Editor and vice-versa. If
Terrain doesn’t automatically appear, see the solution of Error no. 4 described below.
12. Draw 2D Polygon by clicking on menu 2D Flow Area and start drawing polygon.

Double click to end drawing polygon

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13. Draw 2D mesh. Click on 2D Flow Area at left side of menu. . A dialog box appears. Click
on generate computational point. Enter dx and dy. Click Genetate points. Click OK.

14. If there aren’t any error in meshing, you will get 2D mesh. If error occurs, refer Error no. 1 for
soluton
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15. Click on SA/2D Area BC Lines to create Upstream and Downstream Boundary
conditions lines. Draw line at U/s and D/s just a little outside the flow area. Double click to end
drawing. Name U/s and D/s Boundary lines. Refer to Error no. 7, if you get error in the boundary
lines (Upstream or Downstream)

16. Save the Geometry.

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17. Go to Main Hec Ras Window then go to Menu Edit | Unsteady Flow Data
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18. Enter US Boundary condition as Flow hydrograph and DS boundary conditions as Normal depth
with slope (here 0.01 and 0.015 for D/s1 and D/s2). Refer Error no. 5 and 6 to know the error
associated with “Data’s Starting Time Reference”.

How to enter slope for Normal Depth?

Answer: Method 1: Measure the bed slope of your stream in the profile plot in HEC RAS.
You can hold ctrl key and draw a line along profile. This will give you average slope. But
since actual slope is not uniform, there will be some error associated this boundary
conditions.
Method 2: You can also measure the slope between the last two cross section at
downstream boundary.
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To minimize the error: you can move downstream boundary far away from the area of
interest
19. Go to Run | Unsteady Flow Analysis and save the plan. Refer Error no. 5 and 6 to know the error
associated with “Simulation Time Window”.

20. Go to RAS Mapper and right click on 2D Flow Area|Compute 2D flow hydraulics table. If it is
not generated successfully, see error no. 2.
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21. Now Compute the earlier saved plan in step 19

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22. Go to RAS Mapper and observe the result. You can also animate the result.

23. Check on Velocity result. Click on Static Velocity Arrow

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24. Click on particle tracking with velocity checked on. “Ctrl” + “+” will increase particle and
“Ctrl” + “-” will decrease particle.

25. Right click on the map of depth or velocity or WSE, whichever is checked on and select Plot
Time series data.
26. Create profile by creating New line. Then select the New Line and right click to plot time series
data and many other graphs.
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27. Right click on the Map Layers and select “Add web imagery layer” the select the type of map

28. Check on the Map layers to show web image overlaid by depth or velocity or WSE. The color of
arrow can be changed to white from velocity setting menu.
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Errors encountered during modeling and while running the model

1. Error in Meshing: You may see red dots and error message at left bottom corner of
the screen in “Geometry Editor”. The cause of the error may be due to overlapping
of cells centers or some lines/cell centers may be out of the 2D flow area or sharp
boundary or collinear cell faces of the same cell, etc.
Solution: In the geometry editor, go to menu Edit and choose appropriate sub-
menus like Move points/objects or Add points or Remove points. Choosing one or
combination of these sub-menus, smoothen the boundary of the cells which is
causing trouble i.e. in the cells where there is red dot.

2. 2D Flow Area Mesh was not successfully generated: This error message may
sometime appear when you are trying to perform “Compute 2D Area Flow
hydraulics table” in RAS Mapper.
Solution: Go to Geometry Editor and re-compute 2D meshing. A dialog box appears
asking “Do you want to continue? Re-meshing will replace the previously created 2D
mesh.” Click Yes. Then go back to RAS Mapper and perform “Compute 2D Area Flow
hydraulics table”. Probably there would be no error message.

3. 2D Flow area wasn’t found or generated: If you have skipped step 20, you may be
lucky enough to get this error when computing Unsteady Flow Analysis.
Solution: Follow step 20.

4. Background Terrain file doesn’t appear in the Geometry Editor: This isn’t exactly an
error but it becomes quite frustrating if you can’t figure out where your background
image is and why it didn’t load automatically in the first place. This may occur while
opening Geometry Editor first time after creating Terrain in the RAS Mapper or while
working in the Geometry Editor.
Solution: Go to RAS Mapper. Save the terrain as image by Right clicking on
Terrain|Export layer | Export current image to JPG. Then import you saved Terrain
by right clicking on the Map Layers, select to import image, navigate to you file
location and import it. Go to Geometry Editor and click on the top menu “Select

layers to view in the background” and select you terrain layer.

5. Time series data ends before the end of simulation: Starting of Time series data can
be entered in two ways:
a. Use Simulation Time
b. Fixed Start Time
Suppose, you have hydrograph and Simulation of following date and time-
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Table 1: Hydrograph

Start Date Start Time End Date End Time

01JAN2000 0000 05JAN2000 2400
Data Time Interval is 1 hour.
Table 2: Simulation

Start Date Start Time End Date End Time

02JAN2000 0000 05JAN2000 2400
Data Time Interval is 1 hour.
When you use Option “a” i.e. Use Simulation Time then the hydrograph table would
begin from Start date and time of Simulation as shown in table below-
Table 3: Hydrograph data table when option “a” is used i.e. Use Simulation Time

Start Date Start Time Data

02JAN2000 0000 500
02JAN2000 0100 550
02JAN2000 0200 650
…. …. ….
06JAN2000 2400 450
Data Time Interval is 1 hour.
When you use Option “b” i.e. Fixed Start Time then the hydrograph table would
begin from the specified start date and time, no matter what the starting time of
simulation is.
If you enter, start date and time as: 03JAN2000 0000, the hydrograph table will be
generated as follow-
Table 4: Hydrograph data table when option “b” is used i.e. Fixed Start Time

Start Date Start Time Data

03JAN2000 0000 500
02JAN2000 0100 550
02JAN2000 0200 650
…. …. ….
07JAN2000 2400 450
Data Time Interval is 1 hour.
This is how you can enter data of Flow Hydrograph. Let us see how the specified
error no. 5 can occur.
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Now, we know how starting time of simulation and starting time of Flow Hydrograph
are interrelated. Before going into the cause of error, let us see how we can avoid
the error no. 5 and 6 forever with one simple rule.
Rule: The starting date & time and ending date & time of simulation should always
be within the starting date & time and ending date & time of Flow Hydrograph.

As shown in the figure and stated in the rule, Cause of the error “Time series data
ends before the end of simulation” is end date and time of simulation being greater
than that of the Flow Hydrograph. It is shown in blue color and marked as Error A in
the above figure.

Solution: Make the start and end of simulation date and time as that of valid
simulation represented by green color in the above figure.

6. Time series data starts after the simulation starts:

Cause of the error “Time series data starts after the simulation starts” is start date
and time of simulation being smaller than that of the Flow Hydrograph. It is shown in
violet color marked as Error B in the above figure.

Solution: Make the start and end of simulation date and time as that of valid
simulation represented by green color in the above figure.

7. Internal/External Boundary Error: This error occurs if you draw boundary condition
lines inside the 2D flow area and while entering the boundary conditions at
downstream, you will not get “Normal Depth” as a boundary condition.
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Solution: Draw the boundary lines at very small distance, just outside the 2D Flow
Area because we will be entering External boundary conditions.

External 2D Flow Area Boundary Conditions

SN External Boundary Allow flow Allow flow Remarks
Conditions entering into leaving from
2D Flow Area 2D Flow Area
1 Rating Curve No Yes Downstream
2 Normal Depth No Yes Downstream
3 Flow Hydrograph Yes Yes U/s and D/s
4 Stage Hydrograph Yes Yes U/s and D/s
5 Precipitation Added from label
“Add storage
Area”

2D Flow Area Initial Conditions

1. Start completely dry (Default): Leave Initial condition tab’s data empty.
2. Start with single water surface elevation: If the single water surface elevation is 120
m then all the cells of 2D Flow Area with ground elevation > 120 m will be wet and
all the cells with ground elevation < 120 m will be dry.
3. Using Restart file from previous run: Different initial condition, water surface
elevation for every cell and velocities for every face in the model, will be specified.
4. 2D Initial Ramp up Time: Let first flow of hydrograph is 1000 m3/s at U/s boundary
condition and at D/s boundary condition, depth is 10m. If Initial condition ramp up
time is 4 hours and Boundary condition Ramp up fraction (0-1) is 0.25 then during
first 0.25*4= 1 hour, at U/s, flow will rise linearly from dry state i.e. 0 m3/s to 1000
m3/s and at D/s, depth will rise linearly from dry state i.e. 0 m to 10 m. During the
remaining 0.75*4 = 3 hours, at U/s, flow will remain constant at 1000 m3/s and at
D/s, depth will remain constant at 10 m.