Modelling multi-phase liquid-sediment scour and resuspension induced by rapid flows using Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) accelerated with a Graphics Processing Unit (GPU)

In Abstract

New ways of modelling coastal erosion

Port hydrodynamics, wave breaking in coastal applications and scour around structures in civil and environmental engineering flows are numerous applications within engineering where flows with two or more phases are encountered. The two-phase liquid-solid interaction is a perennially difficult problem in hydraulics and more specifically in flow-induced erosion.

Due to the complexity of the moving interfaces, deformation and fragmentation, these flows are inaccessible to traditional simulation approaches which use a computational mesh. These challenges require alternative simulation techniques. Researchers at the University of Manchester have developed a novel approach called ‘Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics’ (SPH) which uses moving particles to represent the flow and is therefore an ideal candidate for applications with multiple phases and mixing.

The rheology of sediment induced under rapidly-varying flows undergoes several states which are only partially described by previous research in SPH. For the first time, this new research bridges the gap between the geotechnics and fluid mechanics by combing the yield characteristics of sediment, the rheology of the yielded sediment and the sediment entrained by the liquid. This work has led to a new release of the industrially-used open-source code DualSPHysics for simulations requiring unprecedented detail and speed.

Click here to read the full article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.advwatres.2016.04.009

Links:

• DualSPHysics – open source SPH solver
• SPHysics – open source SPH solver