Forces on grains located in model geometry with application to internal erosion in embankment dams

• For a comprehensive understanding of internal erosion in embankment dams it is necessary to elucidate the detailed seepage flow. A neat tool that can be used for this purpose is Computational Fluid Dynamics. With such a tool forces on individual particles can be derived and means to decide when to switch from a creeping flow formulation to a more elaborate laminar description for macroscopic flow simulations can be derived. It can even be decided when the transition from a laminar formulation to a fully turbulent description should take place. In the creeping flow regime a Darcy law formulation is sufficient while when inertia-effects become significant it is necessary to use the Navier-Stokes equations or at least add a non-linear term to Darcy's law as done in the empirically derived Ergun equation. It is, however, not obvious which equation to use at a certain Reynolds number. Hence, Computational Fluid Dynamics is here used to derive the apparent permeability of a hexagonal packed array of spheres. Then, grains are introduced in the pore space between the spheres and forces acting on the grains are derived. It will then be possible to decide at what conditions such particles will start to move, due to flow induced forces, and thereby initiating internal erosion. The simulations are performed at various Reynolds number ranging from the creeping flow region to the transition regime. The software ANSYS CFX 11.0 is applied with particular effort on grid refinement and numerical iteration in order to secure that the numerical errors are sufficiently small. One result is that inertia-effects become important already at a Reynolds number of 10. Another is that the forces acting on the grains can decrease as a function of Reynolds number and can as well be dependent on the geometry of the grains, even though the force per unit area on the array of spheres increases. Interestingly, the direction of the forces on the grains can even be opposite to the main flow direction.

Ämnesord

TEKNIK OCH TEKNOLOGIER  -- Maskinteknik -- Strömningsmekanik och akustik (hsv//swe)

ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY  -- Mechanical Engineering -- Fluid Mechanics and Acoustics (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

Strömningslära

Fluid Mechanics

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