Dynamics simulation of bottom high-sediment sea water movement under waves

Abstract

The movement of bottom high-sediment sea water under water waves, especially that of the high-sediment water layer close to the sea bottom, is important to the resuspension and settlement of sediment. Supposing that the high-sediment sea water is a Newtonian fluid, based on Navier-Stokes (N-S) theory, the movement of the interfaces of air-water and water-sediment water was tracked by the volume of fluid (VOF) method. The velocity field of sediment water was simulated by considering the effect of water waves. The results show that the movement of sediment water is very different from that of sea water, which provides a solid basis for understanding the resuspension and settlement of sediment and the formation of bottom stripe, and the VOF method can trace the movement of the two interfaces simultaneously; the movement of the air-water interface has a strong effect on that of the water-sediment water interface, while the effect of the water-sediment water interface movement on the air-water interface is not obvious.

Keywords

volume of fluid (VOF) method / high sediment sea water / numerical simulation / interface trace / Navier-Stokes (N-S) theory