To create a stage hydrograph inflow boundary condition file

Create a stage hydrograph inflow boundary condition file in a text editing application for use in a flood simulation animation. InfraWorks supports comma or space delimited tables in .TXT, .DAT, .CSV, or .EVT formats for inflow files.

A stage hydrograph is a graph or table that represents boundary condition dimensions of water elevation vs. time. You can create your own stage hydrograph inflow file to customize elevation parameters for the inflow boundaries in your flood simulations. This can be especially useful for simulating scenarios such as coastal storm surges or sea level rise, which are modeled based on elevation changes over time rather than discharge inflow rates over time or static inflow volume.

Note: Due to processing times required to generate a simulation for long time durations (such as many months or years), it can be difficult to run a flood simulation for sea level rise, which normally occurs on a significant scale over spans of decades or centuries.

Remember: InfraWorks supports flood simulation capabilities only for users who have purchased and installed the third-party RiverFlow2D plugin available from Hydronia, LLC.

  1. To create a stage hydrograph inflow file, open a text editing or spreadsheet application and create a new document in .TXT, .DAT, .CSV, or .EVT format.

    Note: .EVT files (Elevation vs. Time) are boundary condition file formats created by Hydronia, LLC for use in RiverFlow2D. If you have a stage hydrograph inflow file in .EVT format, choose "All files" in the Select Inflow Data File dialog in order to select and open your .EVT file.

  2. Add a numeric value to the first column of the first row of your document. This value defines the number of pairs in your stage hydrograph. (24 in the example below.)

  3. Add rows underneath the first row, equivalent to the number of data points you specified in your initial row of the document.

    In this example, you add 24 additional rows below the first row; so you have a total of 25 rows in your hydrograph inflow file.

  4. Every row beneath your initial row represents the water elevation rise in meters per time interval in hours.

    For example, in the image below, the 24 pairs of numbers in Rows #2-24 represent changes in water elevation rise for hours 0 through 36 of your flood simulation, respectively. Separate the interval-value from the water-rise-value with a space or comma, depending on the file format.

    Note: Do not include units of measurement in the inflow file. You will specify units of measurement in if you choose a stage hydrograph inflow method in the Flood Simulation panel when you prepare a flood simulation in InfraWorks.

    Stage Hydrograph Inflow

  5. Save the stage hydrograph inflow file to your system.

  6. Select your custom hydrograph inflow file in the Flood Simulation panel when you prepare a flood simulation.

Parent page: Flood Simulation