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An improvement to continuous random walk model for sediment diffusion in inhomogeneous turbulent flows

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Abstract

Motion of sediment particles in turbulent flows is usually a problem including multi-scale particle-turbulence interactions and is still far from being clearly understood. In this paper, an improved numerical method is proposed to describe the particle diffusion in inhomogeneous turbulent flows, in which the fluid motion is solved by the Reynolds-Averaged Navier–Stokes (RANS) equations while the particles are tracked with a Lagrange approach. For dilute problems, not only the inter-particle interactions but also the influence of particles on the fluid turbulence are all omitted. To simulate the stochastic motion of the sediment particles, a modified continuous random walk (CRW) model is employed, in which a highly effective correction to the particle drift is suggested to account for the effect of particle inertia. Enhancement of the particle velocity fluctuation due to vortex shedding in the particle wake is also taken into consideration. The model is then successfully verified through applying to the particle diffusion in steady turbulent pipe flows and to the suspension of neutrally buoyant as well as natural sediments in steady open-channel flows. The computational results are demonstrated to be in good agreement with the experimental data.

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The data that support the findings of this study are available upon reasonable request to the authors.

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Acknowledgements

This research is jointly supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) under Grant Nos. 41976196, 41961144014 and 12102493, and the Science and Technology Development Fund, Macau S.A.R. (File SKL-IOTSC(UM)-2021-2023).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Hydraulic Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China

    Wenxin Li

  2. State Key Laboratory of Internet of Things for Smart City and Department of Ocean Science and Technology, University of Macau, Taipa, Macao, China

    Huabin Shi

  3. Department of Ocean Science and Engineering, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, China

    Xiping Yu

Authors
  1. Wenxin Li
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  2. Huabin Shi
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  3. Xiping Yu
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Contributions

WL, HS and XY conceived of the presented idea. WL performed the numerical computations. All authors discussed the results and contributed to the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Xiping Yu.

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Li, W., Shi, H. & Yu, X. An improvement to continuous random walk model for sediment diffusion in inhomogeneous turbulent flows. Environ Fluid Mech 23, 779–797 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10652-023-09930-4

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