Abstract

Density currents flow due to the density difference between the current and surrounding environment. An important category of density currents is called turbidity currents, which density difference created as a result of suspended solid particle presence in fluid. In the present study, it is tried to use both Eulerian-Eulerian and Eulerian-Lagrangian methods, to take advantage of each one. In this way, the larger particle that have a more effective role in sedimentation mechanism due to the more falling velocity are calculated as Lagrangian and smaller particles by the Eulerian method. In order to obtain a criterion for particle assortment, seven currents with different particle sizes in the Eulerian-Eulerian model have been numerically simulated in a simple channel and it is compared with no particle case, and also the Eulerian-Eulerian method has been verified with experimental results and identified when the particle sizes is less than 12 micron, the sedimentation process is not appreciable, and the presence effect of these kind of particle can be ignored. Therefore, the Eulerian-Eulerian method is a suitable method for this case. The Eulerian-Lagrangian method validation has been performed with experimental results. Finally, the current inside the channel with a spectrum of particle dimensions is simulated and described the results by the proposed method (the combination of two methods). To perform numerical simulations, the development of open-source OpenFOAM codes has been used to take into account the effect of particle. Due to the current’s turbulence, a Large Eddy Simulation method has been used for turbulent modeling.