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A three-dimensional Eulerian two-phase flow solver, SedFoam, has been developed for various sediment transport applications. The solver has demonstrated success in modeling sheet flow and bedforms driven by oscillatory flows using a Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes (RANS) formulation. However, the accuracy of the RANS formulation for more complex flows, such as scour around structures, requires further evaluation. SedFoam has recently been enhanced to incorporate two-phase large-eddy simulation (LES) capability. In this study, RANS and LES approaches are tested via a three-dimensional case of wave-induced local scour around a single vertical circular pile. Two laboratory experiments, one with an erodible bed and the other with a rigid bed, were chosen for simulation, with both experiments having a Keulegan-Carpenter (KC) number of 10. The k-ω turbulence closure was selected for the RANS simulation, and the dynamic Lagrangian subgrid closure was chosen for the LES simulation. Numerical results reveal that both RANS and LES simulations can resolve lee-wake vortices, although the vortices are significantly weaker in the RANS simulation. In comparison with the LES results, the RANS approach fails to predict horseshoe vortex with sufficient intensity, leading to an underestimation of scour hole depth development. Although the scour depths develop at a very similar rate in the early stage, the scour depth predicted by the RANS simulation quickly reaches equilibrium, while the LES simulation follows the measured trend. These findings indicate that a turbulence-resolving methodology, i.e. LES, is necessary for accurate scour simulations.
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Three-phase flow simulation of local scour around a submerged horizontal cylinder
Wave-induced scour plays a key role in the stability analysis of coastal structures, submarine pipelines or cables. There is a rich literature in current-induced scour, but more research is needed to understand the characteristics of wave-induced scour and the mechanisms that are important to the scour process. Sediment transport and flow-induced scour are three-phase (air-water-sediment) flow problems in nature and multi-phase flow simulation is a useful tools that can provide information difficult to obtain from physical tests. Most existing numerical models developed for simulating local scours are based on one-way coupling, which neglects effects of sediment phase on hydrodynamics of the flow. The present study uses a three-phase (air, water and sediment) flow model, which allows for a two-way coupling, to simulate wave-induced local scour problems. The three-phase flow model captures the air-water interface using a modified VOF method, and uses an improved rheology for the sediment phase for better results. The model is validated and verified using one set of existing experiment results for local scour around a submerged horizontal pipe. The detailed flow fields of both the sediment phase and the water phase around the scour are analyzed to understand the scour process. All three-phase flow simulations flow simulations on XSEDE’s Stampede2 supercomputers. The applicability of the model to other local scour problems is also discussed.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1706938
- PAR ID:
- 10299436
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Proceedings of the Thirtieth (2020) International Ocean and Polar Engineering Conference
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 1612-1617
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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