Comparison of different turbulence models in predicting cohesive fluid mud gravity current propagation

A numerical study of propagation of cohesive fluid mud gravity currents in the form of lock-exchange was done using the OpenFOAM open source toolbox. An Eulerian approach solution for three separate phases was developed by incorporating a rheological model to predict the front position of cohesive fluid mud gravity currents. The model also simulates features in the complete movement phases including slumping, self-similar, and viscous in which the dynamics of propagation are affected by the balance of viscous and buoyancy forces, and the inertia force is negligible. The influence of using different turbulence models containing sub-grid scale (SGS), modified SGS, detached eddy simulation (DES), delayed-detached eddy simulation (DDES), Launder-R eece-Rodi (LRR), and k-ɛ models on the accuracy of simulation results was evaluated by comparing with available experimental data. The results show that the selection of the proper turbulence model is one of the most important issues for this type of the numerical modeling. The more efficient turbulence model was suggested and tabulated for each stage of propagation and different selected concentrations of 1,045, 1,140, and 1,214 g/L. Although different turbulence models (except k-ɛ) lead to front propagation dynamic simulation results that are in good agreement with the experimental measurements in the early stage of propagation for low concentrations, only DES, SGS, and modified SGS are able to capture the Kelvin-Helmholtz instability vortex shapes at the dense fluid interface, which is the main characteristic of the gravity current through the slumping phase. The calculated accuracies of SGS and modified SGS in predicting gravity current propagation for the both self-similar and viscous phases also are slightly better than DES, DDES, and LRR model results. The results of this study confirmed the performance and efficiency of the modified SGS model in which the interaction coefficients between phases are calibrated for the numerical modeling of fluid mud gravity current propagation.