Effects of the Turbulent Schmidt Number on the Mass Exchange of a Vegetated Lateral Cavity

<p>Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) has been established as a relevant technique to investigate the qualitative and quantitative characteristics of complex environmental flows, such as transient storage zones. In numerical studies involving mass transport of solutes and sediment (e.g., mean retention time and mass exchange rate), one fundamental variable is the turbulent Schmidt number (Sct) which defines the ratio of momentum diffusivity to mass diffusivity in turbulent flows, and thus affects the concentration of solute within the solution impacting on the estimation of mass related variables. This is particularly important for transient storage zones, such as lateral cavities and groyne fields, as they are known for their role in nutrient retention and release, and sediment entrapment. This numerical study aims to examine the influence of the turbulent Schmidt number in the mean retention time and mass exchange rate between a channel and a vegetated/non-vegetated lateral cavity.</p><p> </p><p>The cavity was <em>L</em> = 0.25m long (x-axis), <em>W</em> = 0.15m wide (y-axis) and had a depth of <em>H</em> = 0.10m (z-axis). The aspect ratio between the width and the length resulted in 0.6 which corresponded to a single circulation system (Sukhodolov et al., 2002). The flow had a bulk velocity of <em>U</em> = 0.101 m/s that corresponds to a Reynolds number of 9000. The vegetation drag was represented by an anisotropic porous media calculated with the Darcy-Forchheimer model (Yamasaki et al., 2019), the vegetation density was constant at <em>a</em> = 0.1332%. Large Eddy Simulation (LES) was applied to define the flow field in that domain, using the Wall Adapting Local Eddy-viscosity (WALE) to account subgrid effects. A passive scalar was injected inside the lateral cavity to investigate its transport and diffusion in a range of Sct from 0.1 to 2.0. The numerical results of the flow field were validated using literature experimental data considering 3 different meshes to achieve mesh independence (Xiang et al., 2019).</p><p> </p><p>The effect of Sct variation was, then, analysed in both vegetated and non-vegetated scenarios, for a total of 40 different simulations. The volumetric average scalar concentration in the cavity was fitted into a first-order decay model <em>(C</em> = <em>C<sub>0</sub>.e<sup>-t/T<sub>D</sub></sup></em>), where <em>C<sub>0</sub> = 1</em> is the initial concentration, <em>t</em>  (s) is time and <em>T<sub>D</sub></em>  is the mean residence time. The mass exchange rate was defined as <em>k</em> = <em>W/(T<sub>D</sub>.U)</em> . Preliminary results showed in the vegetated scenarios a limited effect of Sct on the mass exchange rate, which varied from 1% if the Sct value was doubled.</p><p><strong>References</strong></p><p>Sukhodolov, A., Uijttewaal, W. S. J. and Engelhardt, C.: On the correspondence between morphological and hydrodynamical patterns of groyne fields, Earth Surf. Process. Landforms, 27(3), 289–305, doi:10.1002/esp.319, 2002.</p><p>Xiang, K., Yang, Z., Huai, W. and Ding, R.: Large eddy simulation of turbulent flow structure in a rectangular embayment zone with different population densities of vegetation, Environ. Sci. Pollut. Res., 26(14), 14583–14597, doi:10.1007/s11356-019-04709-x, 2019.</p><p>Yamasaki, T. N., de Lima, P. H. S., Silva, D. F., Preza, C. G. de A., Janzen, J. G. and Nepf, H. M.: From patch to channel scale: The evolution of emergent vegetation in a channel, Adv. Water Resour., doi:10.1016/j.advwatres.2019.05.009, 2019.</p>

Numerical Investigation of an Open-Design Vortex Pump with Different Blade Wrap Angles of Impeller

The blade wrap angle of impeller is an important structural parameter in the hydraulic design of open-design vortex pump. In this paper, taking a vortex pump with a cylindrical blade structure as the research object, two kinds of different blade wrap angle of vortex pump impellers are designed. The experiment and numerical simulation research is carried out, and the results of external characteristics and internal flow field are obtained under different flow rate. The results show that when ensuring that other main structural parameters remain unchanged, the efficiency and head of open-design vortex pump increase with the blade wrap angle decreases. In the case of blade wrap angle increasing, the length of rotating reflux back from lateral cavity to inlet is longer. For the same type of vortex pump, the length of rotating reflux to inlet decreases with the increase of flow rate. At the inlet area of impeller front face, there is an area where liquid flows back to the lateral cavity. The volute section shows that after passing through the impeller and lateral cavity, the liquid is discharged to the pump outlet with strong spiral strength. It is found that the blade wrap angle decreases and the shaft power increases, while the pump efficiency increases. The impeller blade wrap angle of vortex pump can be considered to select a smaller value.

Experimental study of resonant shallow flows past a lateral cavity: a benchmark test for high-resolution numerical models

<p><span>The study of resonant shallow flows past a lateral cavity is of great relevance due to their interest in civil and environmental engineering [1]. Such flows exhibit the presence of a standing gravity wave, called seiche, which is coupled with the shedding of vortices at the opening of the cavity. A complete understanding of such phenomenon is necessary as it may determine the mass exchange between the main channel and the cavity [2]. </span><span>A better insight into this phenomenon helps to improve the design and implementation of innovative river bank restoration techniques</span><span>. An experimental study of the resonant flow in a laboratory flume with a single lateral cavity is herein presented. Five different flow configurations at a fixed Froude number (Fr=0.8) are considered. The main novelty of the present work is the use of a pioneering non-intrusive experimental technique [3] to measure the water surface at the channel-cavity region. This optical technique offers high resolution 2D data in time and space of the water surface evolution, allowing to determine the relevant features of the seiche oscillation, i.e. spatial distribution of oscillation nodes and anti-nodes, oscillation modes and amplitude of the oscillation. Such data are supplemented with Particle Image Velocimetry measurements to perform a more detailed study of the resonance phenomenon. High-resolution two-dimensional amplitude oscillation maps of the seiche phenomenon are presented for the experimental water depth. Experimental velocity fields inside the cavity are presented and confirm the inherent coupling between the unstable shear layer at the opening of the cavity and the gravity standing wave. The high quality of the experimental data reported in this work makes this data set a suitable benchmark for numerical simulation models in order to evaluate their performance in the resolution of turbulent resonant shallow flows.</span></p><p><span>[1] C. Juez, M. Thalmann, A. J. Schleiss & M. J. Franca, Morphological resilience to flow fluctuations of fine sediment deposits in bank lateral cavities, Advances in Water Resources, 115 (2018) 44-59.</span></p><p><span>[2] I. Kimura & T. Hosoda, Fundamental properties of flows in open channels with dead zone, Journal of Hydraulic Engineering 123 (1997) 98-107.</span></p><p><span>[3] S. Martínez-Aranda, J. Fernández-Pato, D. Caviedes-Voullième, I. García-Palacín & P. García-Navarro, Towards transient experimental water surfaces: a new benchmark dataset for 2D shallow water solvers, Advances in water resources, 121 (2018) 130-149.</span></p>

Numerical study of resonant shallow flows past a lateral cavity: benchmarking the model with a new experimental data set

<p>Steady shallow flows past an open channel lateral cavity have been widely studied in the last years due to their engineering and environmental relevance, e.g. for river restoration purposes [1]. Such flows can induce the excitation of an eigenmode of a gravity standing wave inside the cavity, called seiche, which may be coupled with the shedding of vortices at the opening of the cavity. A complete understanding of such phenomenon is necessary as it may determine the mass exchange between the main channel and the cavity [2]. A numerical study of the resonant flow in a channel with a single lateral cavity is herein presented. Five different flow configurations at a fixed Froude number (Fr=0.8), measured in the laboratory [3], are used as a benchmark. Such experiments are reproduced using a high-order 2D depth-averaged URANS model based on the shallow water equations, assuming that shallow water turbulence is mainly horizontal [4]. The large-scale horizontal vortices are resolved by the model, whereas the effect of the small-scale turbulence is accounted for by means of a turbulence model. Water surface elevation and velocity measurements are used for comparison with the numerical results. A detailed comparison of the seiche amplitude distribution in the cavity-channel area is presented, showing a good agreement between the numerical results and the observations. Frequency analysis techniques are used to extract the relevant features of the flow. It is evidenced that the proposed model is able to reproduce the observed spatial distribution of oscillation nodes and anti-nodes, as well as the time-averaged flow field. The coupling mechanism between the gravity wave inside the cavity and the unstable shear layer at the opening of the cavity is also accurately captured. <br><br></p><p>[1] C. Juez, M. Thalmann, A. J. Schleiss & M. J.  Franca, Morphological resilience to flow fluctuations of fine sediment deposits in bank lateral cavities, Advances in Water Resources,  115 (2018) 44-59.</p><p>[2] I. Kimura & T. Hosoda, Fundamental properties of flows in open channels with dead zone, Journal of Hydraulic Engineering 123 (1997) 98-107.</p><p>[3] S. Martínez-Aranda, J. Fernández-Pato, D. Caviedes-Voullième, I. García-Palacín & P. García-Navarro, Towards transient experimental water surfaces: a new benchmark dataset for 2D shallow water solvers, Advances in water resources, 121 (2018) 130-149.</p><p>[4] A. Navas-Montilla, C. Juez, M.J. Franca & J. Murillo, Depth-averaged unsteady RANS simulation of resonant shallow flows in lateral cavities using augmented WENO-ADER schemes, Journal of Computational Physics, 24 (2019) 203-217.</p>