68 / 2025-04-24 12:55:33

Investigating sediment transport processes on alluvial riverbeds using CFD-DEM

This study presents a numerical method to investigate sediment transport processes from the
micromechanical particulate perspective. This study applies a continuum-particulate modelling
approach for the fluid-particle interaction, which couples computational fluid dynamics and
discrete element method (CFD-DEM). This is implemented using the open-source OpenFOAM
and LIGGGHTS packages. This model considers sediment beds as distinct particles where the
particle-scale physical behaviour of the sediment movement is captured. This is coupled to a
coarse-grained fluid domain that comprises multiple particles per fluid cell, which allows for
computational efficiency in simulating the sediment transport process. The results from the
simulations are examined and they agree well with well-established empirical results in the Shields
diagram, showing promise of this modelling approach for understanding the details of sediment
transport process in alluvial riverbeds.