Sediment erosion a numerical and experimental study

C Goniva and K Gruber and C Kloss, RIVER FLOW 2012, VOLS 1 AND 2, 415-422 (2012).

A new numerical model to describe the erosion process in the presence of a free surface flow is proposed and tested against experimental data. The fluid flow is captured by a Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) method, whereas the sediment is modelled at a grain size level using Discrete Element Method (DEM). The fluid-particle interaction is realized by a coupling of CFD and DEM, capturing the physics of sediment erosion and deposition at a very detailed particle-scale level. With the aid of optical and acoustic measurement techniques (PIV, ADV) the fluid flow as well as turbulence downstream of a weir is investigated experimentally. Using a LASER based measuring device local bed erosion downstream of the hydraulic structure is analysed and compared to numerical results. It is shown that for numerical simulations different turbulence models are able to capture the global flow pattern but have significant influence on predicted erosion rates. The numerical model presented in this paper is completely realized in an open source environment.

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