Actuator line method flow structures and morphology interaction around a monopile-supported tidal stream turbine using the actuator line–Sediment transport coupling simulation

Marine turbines have been extensively utilized to harness tidal stream energy from free-flowing tides and currents. However, the assessment of the influences of these marine structures on the surrounding environment is still in its early stage. In this study, a numerical model that couples hydrodynamics and sediment transport is developed to simulate the scour processes around a monopile-supported horizontal axial tidal stream turbine under steady currents. The flow characteristics are calculated by solving the 3-D Navier-Stokes equations with the k -ω shear stress transport (SST) turbulence model for closure. The simulation of sediment bed elevation is achieved by solving the Exner equation. The turbine rotor is parameterized using the actuator line method. The developed model is validated against wake velocity and scour depth measurement obtained from previous literature, showing a good agreement. Subsequently, the effects of tip clearance on the flow characteristics around the turbine model on a rigid flatbed are examined. Finally, the scour processes of the turbine model are presented, along with the vortex system within the scour hole. The numerical model proposed in this study has the potential to contribute to the understanding of the scour mechanism of the tidal stream turbines.

Study on the Sediment Transport Flux and Mechanism in the Bohai Strait at the Tidal and Monthly Scales in Summer

Based on the data of tidal currents and suspended sediment concentrations observed synchronously at 11 stations in the Bohai Strait lasting for 25 hours,the temporal and spatial variations of currents and suspended sediment concentrations in the Bohai Strait in summer were analyzed.The Study preliminarily discussed the transport mechanism,transport trend and transport flux of suspended sediments in summer,using flux-mechanism decomposition method and numerical simulation.The suspended sediment transport was mainly controlled by advection and next influenced by vertical net circulation,while resuspension is relatively weak in Bohai Strait.The single-width fluxes of investigation stations varied from 3.8 to 89.1 gm^(−1) s^(−1),with the maximum value in Miaodao Strait.The suspended sediment transport trends in Laotieshan channel along the vertical section are obviously distinct.The waters mainly flow out of the Bohai Sea in surface layer,while into the Bohai Sea in bottom layer.However,the transport trends of other channels in the centre and south are consistent vertically.The sediments in the Bohai Strait follows the transport pattern of moving outward from the south and inward from the north in summer,i.e.,the sediments are carried out of the Bohai Sea through the Laotieshan channel,while into the Bohai Sea through other channels.And the outflow flux exceeds the inflow flux in August with the net water flux of 1.4×10^(10)m^(3),basically same as the deliveries of the rivers into the Bohai Sea.Moreover,the suspended sediment flux is 0.33 Mt under the action of tidal residual currents in the Yellow Sea in August.

Numerical Simulation of Bed Load and Suspended Load Sediment Transport Using Well-Balanced Numerical Schemes

Sediment transport can be modelled using hydrodynamic models based on shallow water equations coupled with the sediment concentration conservation equation and the bed con-servation equation.The complete system of equations is made up of the energy balance law and the Exner equations.The numerical solution for this complete system is done in a seg-regated manner.First,the hyperbolic part of the system of balance laws is solved using a finite volume scheme.Three ways to compute the numerical flux have been considered,the Q-scheme of van Leer,the HLLCS approximate Riemann solver,and the last one takes into account the presence of non-conservative products in the model.The discretisation of the source terms is carried out according to the numerical flux chosen.In the second stage,the bed conservation equation is solved by using the approximation computed for the system of balance laws.The numerical schemes have been validated making comparisons between the obtained numerical results and the experimental data for some physical experiments.The numerical results show a good agreement with the experimental data.

A High-Order Conservative Semi-Lagrangian Solver for 3D Free Surface Flows with Sediment Transport on Voronoi Meshes

In this paper,we present a conservative semi-Lagrangian scheme designed for the numeri-cal solution of 3D hydrostatic free surface flows involving sediment transport on unstruc-tured Voronoi meshes.A high-order reconstruction procedure is employed for obtaining a piecewise polynomial representation of the velocity field and sediment concentration within each control volume.This is subsequently exploited for the numerical integration of the Lagrangian trajectories needed for the discretization of the nonlinear convective and viscous terms.The presented method is fully conservative by construction,since the transported quantity or the vector field is integrated for each cell over the deformed vol-ume obtained at the foot of the characteristics that arises from all the vertexes defining the computational element.The semi-Lagrangian approach allows the numerical scheme to be unconditionally stable for what concerns the advection part of the governing equations.Furthermore,a semi-implicit discretization permits to relax the time step restriction due to the acoustic impedance,hence yielding a stability condition which depends only on the explicit discretization of the viscous terms.A decoupled approach is then employed for the hydrostatic fluid solver and the transport of suspended sediment,which is assumed to be passive.The accuracy and the robustness of the resulting conservative semi-Lagrangian scheme are assessed through a suite of test cases and compared against the analytical solu-tion whenever is known.The new numerical scheme can reach up to fourth order of accu-racy on general orthogonal meshes composed by Voronoi polygons.

Numerical Analysis of Adaptation-to-capacity Length for Fluvial Sediment Transport

Over the last several decades,various sediment transport capacity formulations have been used by geomorphologists and engineers to calculate fluvial morphological changes.However,it remains poorly understood if the adaptation to capacity could be fulfilled instantly in response to differing inflow discharges and sediment supplies,and thus if the calculation of morphological changes in rivers based on the assumed capacity status is fully justified.Here we present a numerical investigation on this issue.The distance required for sediment transport to adapt to capacity(i.e.,adaptation-to-capacity length) of both bed load and suspended sediment transport is computationally studied using a coupled shallow water hydrodynamic model,in line with varied inlet sediment concentrations.It is found that the adaptation-to-capacity length generally decreases as the Rouse number increases,irrespective of whether the inlet sediment concentration increases or reduces.For cases with vanishing inlet sediment concentration a unified relationship is found between the adaptation-to-capacity length and the Rouse number.Quantitatively,the adaptation-to-capacity length of bed load sediment is limited to tens of times of the flow depth,whilst that of suspended sediment increases substantially with decreasing Rouse number and can be up to hundreds of times of the flow depth.The present finding concurs that bed load sediment transport can adapt to capacity much more rapidly than suspended sediment transport,and it facilitates a quantitative criterion on which the applicability of bed load or suspended sediment transport capacity for natural rivers can be readily assessed.

Observations of boundary layer parameters and suspended sediment transport over the intertidal flats of northern Jiangsu, China

A current-turbidity monitoring system (CTMS) was deployed on the intertidal flat at Wanggang, northern Jiangsu during October 16-17, 2000, to measure the tidal current speeds and seawater turbidities at 5 levels above the seabed. Based upon the logarithmic-profile equation, the boundary layer parameters, i.e., u, z0 and C60, were obtained for 247 tidal flow velocity profiles. Around 90% of the profiles were logarithmic according to the critical correlation coefficient. Internal consistency analysis shows that these parameters derived by different methods are consistent with each other. In addition, the height of the bedforms observed is close to the seabed roughness lengths calculated from the velocity profiles, indicating that the boundary layer parameters obtained can reveal the conditions at the sediment-water interface on the intertidal flats. Suspended sediment concentrations were obtained from the 5 CTMS turbidity meters using laboratory and in-situ calibrations. The results show that the in-situ calibrated SSCs have a much higher accuracy than the laboratory calibrated ones. Calculation of suspended sediment fluxes on the intertidal flats, with a magnitude of 104 kg/m per spring tidal cycle, indicates that suspended sediment moves towards the northwest, which is reversal to the transport pattern controlled by the southward Northern Jiangsu Coastal Current in the sub-tidal zone and adjacent shallow waters.

Partitioning of grain-size components of estuarine sediments and implications for sediment transport in southwestern Laizhou Bay, China

Sediment transport in estuarine systems has been of increasing interest for scientists during the past few decades. However, the mechanisms for sediment redistribution remain unclear. We characterized in detail sediment transport in the Xiaoqing River estuary using the mathematical Weibull function to partition grain-size components of surface sediments in the southwestern Laizhou Bay, Northeast China. Four partitioned components: finer than 4,4.6-12.5, 23.4-63.3, and 67.1-132.6 μm were interpreted in terms of hydrodynamic conditions. During sediment transport, silt grains were suspended and moved seaward from three depositional centers, whereas fine-grained sands moved generally landward. Overall, sediments are transported clockwise in a generally NNE direction near shore and then turn eastward offshore. The mathematical partitioning method showed a great potential for future estuarine environmental studies.

Experimental investigation of the effect of flow turbulence and sediment transport patterns on the adsorption of cadmium ions onto sediment particles

The mechanism of flow turbulence, sediment supply conditions, and sediment transport patterns that affect the adsorption of cadmium ions onto sediment particles in natural waters are experimentally simulated and studied both in batch reactors and in a turbulence simulation tank. By changing the agitation conditions, the sediment transport in batch reactors can be categorized into bottom sediment-dominated sediment and suspended sediment-dominated sediment. It is found that the adsorption rate of bottom sediment is much less than that of suspended sediment, but the sediment transport pattern does not affect the final （equilibrium） concentration of dissolved cadmium. This result indicates that the parameters of an adsorption isotherm are the same regardless of the sediment transport pattern. In the turbulence simulation tank, the turbulence is generated by harmonic grid-stirred motions, and the turbulence intensity is quantified in terms of eddy diffusivity, which is equal to 9.84F （F is the harmonic vibration frequency） and is comparable to natural surface water conditions. When the turbulence intensity of flow is low and sediment particles stay as bottom sediment, the adsorption rate is significantly low, and the adsorption quantity compared with that of suspended sediment is negligible in the 6 h duration of the experiment. This result greatly favors the simplification of the numerical modeling of heavy metal pollutant transformation in natural rivers. When the turbulence intensity is high but bottom sediment persists, the rate and extent of descent of the dissolved cadmium concentration in the tank noticeably increase, and the time that is required to reach adsorption equilibrium also increases considerably due to the continuous exchange that occurs between the suspended sediment and the bottom sediment. A comparison of the results of the experiments in the batch reactor and those in the turbulence simulation tank reveals that the adsorption ability of the sediment, and in particular the adsorption rate, is greatly over-estimated in the batch reactor.

Coupled Model of Two-phase Debris Flow,Sediment Transport and Morphological Evolution

The volume fraction of the solid and liquid phase of debris flows, which evolves simultaneously across terrains, largely determines the dynamic property of debris flows. The entrainment process significantly influences the amplitude of the volume fraction. In this paper, we present a depth-averaged two-phase debris-flow model describing the simultaneous evolution of the phase velocity and depth, the solid and fluid volume fractions and the bed morphological evolution. The model employs the Mohr–Coulomb plasticity for the solid stress, and the fluid stress is modeled as a Newtonian viscous stress. The interfacial momentum transfer includes viscous drag and buoyancy. A new extended entrainment rate formula that satisfies the boundary momentum jump condition （Iverson and Ouyang, 2015） is presented. In this formula, the basal traction stress is a function of the solid volume fraction and can take advantage of both the Coulomb and velocity-dependent friction models. A finite volume method using Roe’s Riemann approximation is suggested to solve the equations. Three computational cases are conducted and compared with experiments or previous results. The results show that the current computational model and framework are robust and suitable for capturing the characteristics of debris flows.

The reverse sediment transport trend between abandoned Huanghe River(Yellow River) Delta and radial sand ridges along Jiangsu coastline of China——an evidence from grain size analysis

To reveal the sediment transporting mechanism between the abandoned Huanghe River （Yellow River） Delta and radial sand ridges, “End Member” Model and grain size trend analysis have been employed to separate the “dynamic populations” in the surficial sediment particle spectra and to determine the possible sediment transporting pathway. The results reveal four “dynamic subpopulations”（EM1 to EM4） and two reverse sediment transporting directions： a northward transport tend from the radial sand ridges to mud patch, and a southward transport trend in deep water area outside the mud patch. Combined with the published hydrodynamic information, the transporting mechanism of dynamic populations has been discussed, and the main conclusion is that the transporting of finer subpopulations EM1 and EM2 is controlled by the “anticlockwise residual current circulation” forming during tidal cycle, which favor a northward transporting trend and the forming of mud patch on the north of radial sand ridges, while the transporting of coarser EM3 is mainly controlled by wind driven drift in winter, which favors a southward transporting direction.

SEDIMENT TRANSPORT IN YALU RIVER ESTUARY

Tidal cycle measurements of tidal currents, salinity and water tempe rature, and suspended sediment concentrations were measured at four stations, to gether with surveys along two profiles short core collection within the Yalu Riv er estuary. Grain size analysis of the three core sediment showed that: 1) the s ediment from B1 to B3 became finer, worse sorting and positively skewed; 2) the diversification of matter origin became more and more evident from east to west; 3) the sediments over the region were of the same origin, as indicated by their similar colors and grain sizes. The data indicated that stratification occurred in the flood season, from upstream to downstream, and a salt wedge was formed. The water column was well mixed, but the longitudinal gradient of the salinity w as larger on spring tide. The results also showed that the dominating mechanism of suspended sediment transport in the Yalu River estuary was T1, T2, T3 and T5. The non-tidal steady advection transport was restricted by the net transport o f suspended sediment induced by mass Stoked drift directed to landwards, then th e net sediment transport rate were decreased and the turbidity maxima was also f avored to forming and extending.

Equilibrium sediment transport in lower Yellow River during later sediment-retaining period of Xiaolangdi Reservoir

The Xiaolangdi Reservoir has entered the later sediment-retaining period, and new sediment transport phenomena and channel re-estab- lishing behaviors are appearing. A physical model test was used to forecast the scouring and silting trends of the lower Yellow River. Based on water and sediment data from the lower Yellow River during the period from 1960 to 2012, and using a statistical method, this paper analyzed the sediment transport in sediment-laden flows with different discharges and sediment concentrations in the lower Yellow River. The results show that rational water-sediment regulation is necessary to avoid silting in the later sediment-retaining period. The combination of 3 000 m^3/s 〈 Q 〈 4 000 m^3/s and 20 kg/m^3 〈 S 〈 60 kg/m^3 （where Q is the discharge and S is the sediment concentration） at the Huayuankou section is considered an optimal combination for equilibrium sediment transport in the lower Yellow River over a long period of time.

Coupled 2D Hydrodynamic and Sediment Transport Modeling of Megaflood due to Glacier Dam-break in Altai Mountains,Southern Siberia

One of the largest known megafloods on earth resulted from a glacier dam-break,which occurred during the Late Quaternary in the Altai Mountains in Southern Siberia.Computational modeling is one of the viable approaches to enhancing the understanding of the flood events.The computational domain of this flood is over 9460 km2 and about 3.784 × 106 cells are involved as a 50 m × 50 m mesh is used,which necessitates a computationally efficient model.Here the Open MP(Open Multiprocessing) technique is adopted to parallelize the code of a coupled 2D hydrodynamic and sediment transport model.It is shown that the computational efficiency is enhanced by over 80% due to the parallelization.The floods over both fixed and mobile beds are well reproduced with specified discharge hydrographs at the dam site.Qualitatively,backwater effects during the flood are resolved at the bifurcation between the Chuja and Katun rivers.Quantitatively,the computed maximum stage and thalweg are physically consistent with the field data of the bars and deposits.The effects of sediment transport and morphological evolution on the flood are considerable.Sensitivity analyses indicate that the impact of the peak discharge is significant,whilst those of the Manningroughness,medium sediment size and shape of the inlet discharge hydrograph are marginal.

Evaluation of an erosion-sediment transport model for a hillslope using laboratory flume data

Climate change can escalate rainfall intensity and cause further increase in sediment transport in arid lands which in turn can adversely affect water quality. Hence, there is a strong need to predict the fate of sediments in order to provide measures for sound erosion control and water quality management. The presence of micro- topography on hillslopes influences processes of runoff generation and erosion, which should be taken into account to achieve more accurate modelling results. This study presents a physically based mathematical model for erosion and sediment transport coupled to one-dimensional overland flow equations that simulate rainfall-runoff generation on the rill and interrill areas of a bare hillslope. Modelling effort at such a fine resolution considering the flow con- nection between Jnterrill areas and rills is rarely verified. The developed model was applied on a set of data gath- ered from an experimental setup where a 650 cm×136 cm erosion flume was pre-formed with a longitudinal rill and interrJll having a plane geometry and was equipped with a rainfall simulator that reproduces natural rainfall characteristics. The flume can be given both longitudinal and lateral slope directions. For calibration and validation, the model was applied on the experimental results obtained from the setup of the flume having 5% lateral and 10% longitudinal slope directions under rainfall intensities of 105 and 45 mm/h, respectively. Calibration showed that the model was able to produce good results based on the R2 （0.84） and NSE （0.80） values. The model performance was further tested through validation which also produced good statistics （R2=0.83, NSE=0.72）. Results in terms of the sedigraphs, cumulative mass curves and performance statistics suggest that the model can be a useful and an important step towards verifying and improving mathematical models of erosion and sediment transport.

Numerical simulation of sediment transport in coastal waves and wave-induced currents

Prediction of coastal sediment transport is of particularly importance for analyzing coast erosion accurately and solving the corresponding coast protection engineering problems.The present study provided a numerical scheme for sediment transport in coastal waves and wave-induced currents.In the scheme,the sand transport model was implemented with wave refraction-diffraction model and near-shore current model.Coastal water wave was simulated by using the parabolic mild-slope equation in which wave refraction,diffraction and breaking effects are considered.Wave-induced current was simulated by using the nonlinear shallow water equations in which wave provides radiation stresses for driving current.Then,sediment transport in waves and wave-induced currents was simulated by using the two-dimensional suspended sediment transport equations for suspended sediment and the bed-load transport equation for bed load.The numerical scheme was validated by experiment results from the Large-scale Sediment Transport Facility at the US Army Corps of Engineer Research and Development Center in Vicksburg.The numerical results showed that the present scheme is an effective tool for modeling coastal sediment transport in waves and near-shore currents.

Scale effects of eroded sediment transport in Wujiang River Basin, Guizhou Province, China

In recent years, research on spatial scale and scale transformation of eroded sediment transport has become a forefront field in current soil erosion research, but there are very few studies on the scale effect problem in Karst regions of China. Here we quantitatively extracted five main factors influencing soil erosion, namely rainfall erosivity, soil erodibility, vegetative cover and management, soil and water conservation, and slope length and steepness. Regression relations were built between these factors and also the sediment transport modulus and drainage area, so as to initially analyze and discuss scale effects on sediment transport in the Wujiang River Basin(WRB). The size and extent of soil erosion influencing factors in the WRB were gauged from: Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer Global Digital Elevation Model(ASTER GDEM), precipitation data, land use, soil type and Normalized Difference Vegetation Index(NDVI) data from Global Inventory Modeling and Mapping Studies(GIMMS) or Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer(AVHRR), and observed data from hydrometric stations. We find that scaling effects exist between the sediment transport modulus and the drainage area. Scaling effects are expressed after logarithmic transformation by a quadratic function regression relationship where the sediment transport modulus increases before decreasing, alongside changes in the drainage area. Among the five factors influencing soil erosion, slope length and steepness increases first and then decreases, alongside changes in the drainage area, and are the main factors determining the relationship between sediment transport modulus and drainage area. To eliminate the influence of scale effects on our results, we mapped the sediment yield modulus of the entire WRB, adopting a 1 000 km^2 standard area with a smaller fitting error for all sub-basins, and using the common Kriging interpolation method.

Characteristics of Light Transmission in Summer and Winter and Its Relation to Sediment Transport in the East China Sea

Light transmission data collected from June to July 1987 and from February to March 1997 by the R/V Kexue 1 in the East China Sea were used to analyze its distribution characteristics and its relation to the sediment transport in this sea. Some results obtained were: (1) The Taiwan Warm Current flowing northwards seemed to be a barrier preventing suspended matter discharged from the Changjiang River Estuary from continuously moving southeastward and causing the suspended matter to flow along a path near 123°30′E in summer and 123°00′E in winter. (2) Suspended matter in the area adjacent to the Changjiang River Estuary could not be transported southward along the coast in summer due to opposing offshore currents including the Taiwan Warm Current flowing northward and the Changjiang Diluted Water turning northeastward. (3) The thermocline and temperature front bar suspended matter from crossing through.

Modeling the circulation and sediment transport in the Beibu Gulf

Water circulation and sediment transport in the Beibu Gulf are important for its environmental protection and resource exploitation.By employing the Regional Ocean Modeling System（ROMS）,we studied the seasonal variation of circulation,sediment transport and long-term morphological evolution in the Beibu Gulf.The simulation results show that the circulation induced by tide and wind is cyclonic both in winter and summer in the gulf and that the wind-driven circulation is stronger in winter than that in summer.The sediment concentration is higher in the Qiongzhou Strait,west of the Hainan Island and the coast of Vietnam and the Leizhou Peninsula.The sediment is transported westwards in winter and eastwards in summer in the Qiongzhou Strait.The west entrance of the Qiongzhou Strait is dominated by westward transport all the year round.The sediment discharged by rivers is deposited near the river mouths.The simulated result demonstrates that the sediment transport is mainly controlled by tidal induced bottom resuspension in the Beibu Gulf.Four characteristics are summarized for the distribution patterns of erosion and deposition.（1） The erosion and deposition are insignificant in most area of the gulf.（2） Sediment deposition is more significant in the mouths of Qiongzhou Strait.（3） The erosion is observed in the seabed of Qiongzhou Strait.（4） Erosion and deposition occur alternatively in the west of Hainan Island.

The rule of sediment transport on the Nanhui tidal flat in the Changjiang Estuary

The Nanhui tidal flat is located in the area of slow current where the ebb currents from the Changjiang Estuaryand the Hangzhou Bay converge and the flood current from the sea diverges into the estuary and the bay. The flat extends seaward in tongue shape and has a wide and gentle surface with a marked difference of tidal levels on its two sides, which results in the sediment longitudinal transport on the flat. The water-sediment conditions are diverse at different locations. The velocity and sediment concentration in intertidal zone are higher during the flood tide than those during the ebb tide. The net sediment transport is landward, resulting in a large amount of deposition of sediments on the shoal. However, the ebb current is the dominant one in deep-water area where the net sediment transport is seaward. There exist two circulation systems in plane view on the shoal and in its adjacent deep-water area, which results in the sediment exchanges between the flat and channel and between the estuary and the bay. The landward storm waves erode shoal face, causing the rise of water level on the flat, originating the formation of the vertical circulation system of the sediment transport, and consequently * accelerating the evolution process of the tidal flat.

Suspended sediment transport analysis in two Italian instrumented catchments

Suspended sediment transport in streams is an effective indicator of soil erosion at the watershed scale. This process was studied using the data obtained from two continuous monitoring stations installed in Italian watersheds, the Rio Cordon and Torrente CarapeUe. The catchments have substantially different climatic, morphological and land use characteristics. The Rio Cordon, a small Alpine watershed, has been monitored since 1986, while in the Torrente Carapelle, a medium-size Mediterranean watershed, the monitoring station has provided data since 2007. Several flood events with suspended sediment transport were isolated in the two catchments, excluding those determined by snowmelt in the Rio Cordon as this process does not affect the Carapelle watershed. Analysis of the events showed different behavior in terms of hysteresis loop trends between water discharge （m3 S-1） and suspended sediment concentration （g 1-1） values, as the Rio Cordon confirms clockwise relationships most frequently, while counter-clockwise trends represent the majority of cases for the Carapelle Torrent. The different behavior of the two watersheds was further analyzed by evaluating relationships between the main hydrological parameters related to suspended sediment transport. Runoff controls the total sediment budget in both catchments. In contrast, it was noted that the runoff process does not interfere in the magnitude of the suspended sediment transport in the Rio Cordon catchment, while variations due to the larger size of the catchment area characterize the events in the Carapelle watershed. Lastly, a flow peak threshold that determines the advance or delay of the hydrograph peak with respect to the sedigraph peak was established for the Carapelle Torrent, while it was not reported in the Rio Cordon.