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A large eddy simulation (LES) is performed for a turbulent open channel flow over a porous sediment bed at permeability Reynolds number of R e K ∼ 2.56 (R e τ = 270) representative of aquatic systems. A continuum approach based on the upscaled, volume-averaged Navier−Stokes (VaNS) equations is used by defining smoothly varying porosity across the sediment water interface (SWI) and modeling the drag force in the porous bed using a modified Ergun equation with Forchheimer corrections for inertial terms. The results from the continuum approach are compared with a pore-resolved direct numerical simulation (PR-DNS) in which turbulent flow over a randomly packed sediment bed of monodispersed particles is investigated [Karra et al.,J. Fluid Mech. 971, A23 (2023)] A spatially varying porosity profile generated from the pore-resolved DNS is used in the continuum approach. Mean flow, Reynolds stress statistics, and net momentum exchange between the freestream and the porous bed are compared between the two studies, showing reasonably good agreement. Small deviations within the transitional region between the sediment bed and the freestream as compared to the PR-DNS results are attributed to the local protrusions of particles in a randomly packed bed that are absent in the continuum approach but are present in the PR-DNS. A better representation of the effective permeability in the top transition layer that accounts for roughness effect of exposed particles is necessary. The continuum approach significantly reduces the computational cost, thereby making it suitable to study hyporheic exchange of mass and momentum in large scale aquatic domains with combined influence of bedform and bed roughness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Large-eddy simulation of flow over an open cavity corresponding to the experimental setup of Liu and Katz (2008, 'Cavitation Phenomena Occurring Due to Interaction of Shear Layer Vortices With the Trailing Corner of a Two-Dimensional Open Cavity,' Phys. Fluids, 20(4), p. 041702)is performed. The filtered, incompressible Navier--Stokes equations are solved using a co-located grid finite-volume solver with the dynamic Smagorinsky model for a subgrid-scale closure. The computational grid consists of around 7 x [10.sup.6] grid points with 3 x [10.sup.6] points clustered around the shear layer, and the boundary layer over the leading edge is resolved. The only input from the experimental data is the mean. velocity profile at the inlet condition. The mean flow is superimposed with turbulent velocity fluctuations generated by solving a forced periodic duct flow at a freestream Reynolds number. The flow statistics, including mean and rms velocity fields and pressure coefficients, are compared with the experimental data to show reasonable agreement. The dynamic interactions between traveling vortices in the shear layer and the trailing edge affect the value and location of the pressure minima. Cavitation inception is investigated using two approaches: (i) a discrete bubble model wherein the bubble dynamics is computed by solving the Rayleigh--Plesset and the bubble motion equations using an adaptive time-stepping procedure and (ii) a scalar transport model for the liquid volume fraction with source and sink terms for phase change. Large-eddy simulation, together with the cavitation models, predicts that inception occurs near the trailing edge similar to that observed in the experiments. The bubble transport model captures the subgrid dynamics of the vapor better, whereas the scalar model captures the large-scale features more accurately. A hybrid approach combining the bubble model with the scalar transport is needed to capture the broad range of scales observed in cavitation. [DOI: 10.1115/1.4002744]

Flow maldistribution, resulting from bubbles or other particulate matter, can lead to drastic performance degradation in devices that employ parallel microchannels for heat transfer In this work, direct numerical simulations of fluid flow through a prescribed parallel microchannel geometry are performed and coupled with active control of actuated microvalves to effectively identify and reduce flow maldistribution. Accurate simulation of fluid flow through a set of three parallel microchannels is achieved utilizing a fictitious-domain representation of immersed objects such as microvalves and artificially introduced bubbles. Flow simulations are validated against experimental results obtained for flow through a single high-aspect ratio microchannel, flow around an oscillating cylinder, and flow with a bubble rising in an inclined channel. Results of these simulations compare very well to those obtained experimentally, and validate the use of the solver for the parallel microchannel configuration of this study. System identification techniques are employed on numerical simulations of fluid flow through the geometry to produce a lower dimensional model that captures the essential dynamics of the full nonlinear flow, in terms of a relationship between valve angles and the exit flow rate for each channel. A model-predictive controller is developed, which employs this reduced order model to identify flow maldistribution from exit flow velocities and to prescribe actuation of channel valves to effectively redistribute the flow. Flow simulations with active control are subsequently conducted with artificially introduced bubbles. The model-predictive control methodology is shown to adequately reduce flow maldistribution by quickly varying channel valves to remove bubbles and to equalize flow rates in each channel. [DOI: 10.1115/1.3216519]

Large-eddy simulations (LES) of a single-phase, turbulent flow in a 90 ° pipe bend are performed at three Reynolds numbers (5300, 27 000, and 45 000) to investigate the correlation between secondary flow motion and wall shear stresses, which is suspected to be a potential mechanism responsible for material erosion. The isothermal flows are validated against available experimental and numerical data first. The snapshot proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) is applied for the medium and high Reynolds number flows to identify the secondary flow motions and the oscillation of the Dean vortices that are found to cause swirl-switching. Distinguished frequencies of the POD time coefficients at Strouhal numbers of 0.25 and 0.28 are identified for Reynolds numbers at 27 000 and 45 000, respectively. Moreover, shear stress on the pipe wall and the associated power spectral density are obtained and shown to have the same oscillating frequency as the swirl-switching. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Turbulent flows in porous media occur in a wide variety of applications, from catalysis in packed beds to heat exchange in nuclear reactor vessels. In this review, we summarize the current state of the literature on methods to model such flows. We focus on a range of Reynolds numbers, covering the inertial regime through the asymptotic turbulent regime. The review emphasizes both numerical modeling and the development of averaged (spatially filtered) balances over representative volumes of media. For modeling the pore scale, we examine the recent literature on Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes (RANS) models, large-eddy simulation (LES) models, and direct numerical simulations (DNS). We focus on the role of DNS and discuss how spatially averaged models might be closed using data computed from DNS simulations. A Darcy–Forchheimer-type law is derived, and a prior computation of the permeability and Forchheimer coefficient is presented and compared with existing data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A numerical investigation of unsteady hydrodynamic forces on the particle bed in an oscillatory flow environment is performed by means of direct numerical simulations. Statistical descriptions of drag and lift forces for two particle sizes of diameter 372 and 125 in wall units in a very rough turbulent flow regime are reported. Characterization of unsteady forces in terms of spatial distribution, temporal autocorrelation, force spectrum as well as cross-correlations with measurable flow variables is carried out. Based on the concept of impulse, intermittency in the drag and lift forces is also investigated. Temporal correlations show drag and lift to be positively correlated with a time delay that is approximately equal to the Taylor micro-scale related to the drag/lift fluctuations. The force spectra for drag and lift reveal roughly two scaling regions, -11/3 and -7/3; the former typically represents turbulence-mean-shear interactions, whereas the latter indicates dominance of turbulence-turbulence interactions. Particle forces are strongly correlated with streamwise velocity and pressure fluctuations in the near-bed region for both flow cases. In comparison to the large-diameter particle case, the spatial extent of these correlations is 2-3 times larger in homogeneous directions for the small sized particle, a feature that is reminiscent of longer near-bed structures. For both large- and small-particle cases, it is shown that the distributions of drag (lift) fluctuations, in particular, peakedness and long tails, match remarkably well with fourth-order Gram-Charlier distributions of velocity (pressure) fluctuations. Furthermore, it is demonstrated that the intermittency is larger in the case of the lift force compared to that for the drag in both flow cases. Distributions of impulse events are heavily and positively skewed and are well described by a generalized extreme value distribution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The hyporheic zone is the interface beneath and adjacent to streams and rivers where surface water and groundwater interact. The hyporheic zone presents unique conditions for reaction of solutes from both surface water and groundwater, including reactions which depend upon mixing of source waters. Some models assume that hyporheic zones are well-mixed and conceptualize the hyporheic zone as a surface water-groundwater mixing zone. But what are the controls on and effects of hyporheic mixing? What specific mechanisms cause the relatively large (>∼1 m) mixing zones suggested by subsurface solute measurements? In this commentary, we explore the various processes that might enhance mixing in the hyporheic zone relative to deeper groundwater, and pose the question whether the substantial mixing suggested by field studies may be due to the combination of fluctuating boundary conditions and multiscale physical and chemical spatial heterogeneity. We encourage investigation of hyporheic mixing using numerical modeling and laboratory experiments to ultimately inform field investigations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sand transport and morphological change occur in the wave bottom boundary layer due to sand particle interactions with an oscillatory flow and granular interactions between particles. Although these interactions depend strongly on the characteristics of the particle population, i.e. size and shape, little is known about how natural sand particles behave under oscillatory conditions and how variations in particle size influence transport behaviour. To enable this to be studied numerically, an Euler-Lagrange point-particle model is developed which can capture the individual and collective dynamics of subaqueous natural sand grains. Special treatments for particle collision, friction and hydrodynamic interactions are included to take into account the wide size and shape variations in natural sands. The model is used to simulate sand particle dynamics in two asymmetric oscillatory flow conditions corresponding to the vortex ripple experiments of Van der Werf et al. (J. Geophys. Res., vol. 112, 2007, F02012) and the sheet-flow experiments of O'Donoghue & Wright (Coast. Engng, vol. 50, 2004, pp. 117-138). A comparison of the phase resolved velocity and concentration fields shows overall excellent agreement between simulation and experiments. The particle based datasets are used to investigate the spatio-temporal dynamics of the particle-size distribution and the influence of three-dimensional vortical features on particle entrainment and suspension processes. For the first time, it is demonstrated that even for the relatively well-sorted medium-size sands considered here, the characteristics of the local grain size population exhibit significant space-time variation. Both conditions demonstrate a distinct coarse-over-fine armouring at the bed surface during low-velocity phases, which restricts the vertical mobility of finer fractions in the bed, and also results in strong pickup events involving disproportionately coarse fractions. The near-bed layer composition is seen to be very dynamic in the sheet-flow condition, while it remains coarse through most of the cycle in the vortex ripple condition. Particles in suspension spend more time sampling the upward directed parts of these flows, especially the smaller fractions, which delays particle settling and enhances the vertical size sorting of grains in suspension. For the submillimetre grain sizes considered, most particle-particle collisions occur at low impact Stokes numbers and can be expected to have low rebound velocities. The results are considered to be fundamental to the understanding of particle sorting and transport mechanisms, and can help to improve current transport modelling approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Particle-resolved direct numerical simulations (DNS) are performed to investigate the behaviour of an oscillatory flow field over a rough bed, corresponding to the experimental set-up of Keiller & Sleath (J. Fluid Mech., vol. 73 (04), 1976, pp. 673-691) for transitional and turbulent flows over a range of Reynolds numbers (95-400) based on the Stokes-layer thickness. It is shown that the roughness modulates the near-bed turbulence, produces streamwise horseshoe structures which then undergo distortion and breaking, and therefore reduces the large-scale anisotropy. A fully developed equilibrium turbulence is observed in the central part of the oscillation cycle, with two-component turbulence in the near-bed region and cigar-shaped turbulence in the outer region. A double averaging of the flow field reveals spatial inhomogeneities at the roughness scale and alternate paths of energy transport in the turbulent kinetic energy (TKE) budget. Contrary to the unidirectional, steady flow over rough beds, bed-induced production terms are important and comparable to the shear production term. It is shown that the near-bed velocity and pressure fluctuations are non-Gaussian, a result of critical importance for the modelling of incipient motion of sediment grains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lack of accurate criteria for onset of incipient motion and sediment pickup function remain two of the biggest hurdles in developing better predictive models for sediment transport. To study pickup and transport of sediment, it is necessary to have a detailed knowledge of the small amplitude oscillatory flow over the sediment layer near the sea bed. Fully resolved direct numerical simulations are performed using fictitious domain approach (Apte & Finn, 2012) to investigate the effect of a sinusoidally oscillating flow field over a rough wall made of regular hexagonal pack of spherical particles. The flow arrangement is similar to the experimental data of Keiller & Sleath (1976). Transitional and turbulent flows at Reδ = 95, 150, 200 (based on the Stokes layer thickness, are studied. Turbulent flow is characterized in terms of coherent vortex structures, Reynolds stress variation and PDF distributions. The nature of unsteady hydrodynamic lift forces on sediment grains and their correlation to sweep and burst events is also reported. The dynamics of the oscillatory flow over the sediment bed is used to understand the mechanism of sediment pick-up. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[2] Accurate estimates of mass-exchange parameters in transient storage zones are needed to better understand and quantify solute transport and dispersion in riverine systems. Currently, the predictive mean residence time relies on an empirical entrainment coefficient with a range in variance due to the absence of hydraulic and geomorphic quantities driving mass exchange. Two empirically derived relationships are presented for the mean residence time of lateral cavities--a prevalent and widely recognized type of transient storage--in gravel-bed rivers and streams that incorporates hydraulic and geomorphic parameters. The relationships are applicable for gravel-bed rivers and streams with a range of cavity width to length (W/L) aspect ratios (0.2-0.75), shape, and Reynolds numbers (Re, ranging from 1.0 x 104 to 1.0 x 107). The relationships equate normalized mean residence time to nondimensional quantities: Froude number, Re, W/L, depth ratio (ratio of cavity to shear layer depth), roughness factor (ratio of shear to channel velocity), and shape factor (representing degree of cavity equidimensionality). One relationship excludes bed roughness (equation (13)) and the other includes bed roughness (equation (14)). The empirically derived relationships have been verified for conservative tracers (R² of 0.83) within a range of flow and geometry conditions. Topics warranting future research are testing the empirical relationship that includes the roughness factor using parameters measured in the vicinity of the cavity to reduce the variance in the correlation, and further development of the relationship for nonconservative transport. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When a few bubbles are entrained in a travelling vortex ring, it has been shown that, even at extremely low volume loadings, their presence can significantly affect the structure of the vortex core (Sridhar & Katz, J. Fluid Mech., vol. 397, 1999, pp. 171–202). A typical Euler–Lagrange point-particle model with two-way coupling for this dilute system, wherein the bubbles are assumed subgrid and momentum point sources are used to model their effect on the flow, is shown to be unable to capture accurately the experimental trends of bubble settling location, bubble escape and vortex distortion for a range of bubble parameters and vortex strengths. The bubbles experience significant amounts of drag, lift, added mass, pressure and gravity forces. However, these forces are in balance with each other as the bubbles reach a mean settling location away from the vortex core. The reaction force on the fluid due to the net summation of these forces alone is thus very small and is unable to affect the vortex core. By accounting for fluid volume displacement due to bubble motion, experimental trends on vortex distortion and bubble settling location are captured accurately. The fluid displacement effects are studied by computing various contributions to an effective volume displacement force and are found to be important even at low volume loadings. As the bubble size and hence bubble Reynolds number increase, the bubbles settle further away from the vortex centre and have strong potential for vortex distortion. The net volume displacement force depends on the radial pressure force, the radial settling location of the bubble, as well as the vortex Reynolds number. The resultant of the volume displacement force is found to be roughly at $4{5}^{\circ } $ with the vortex travel direction, resulting in wakes directed towards the vortex centre. Finally, a simple modification to the standard point-particle two-way coupling approach is developed wherein the interphase reaction source terms are consistently altered to account for the fluid displacement effects and reactions due to bubble accelerations. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Surface transient storage (STS) has functional significance in stream ecosystems because it increases solute interaction with sediments. After volume, mean residence time is the most important metric of STS, but it is unclear how this can be measured accurately or related to other timescales and field-measureable parameters. We studied mean residence time of lateral STS in small streams over Reynolds numbers (Re) 5000-200,000 and STS width to length (WIL) aspect ratios between 0.2-0.75. Lateral STS have flow fields characterized by a shear layer spanning the length of the STS entrance, and one primary gyre and one or more secondary gyre(s) in the STS. The study's purpose was to define, measure, and compare residence timescales: volume to discharge ratio (Langmuir timescale); area under normalized concentration curve; and characteristic time of exponential decay, and to compare these timescales to field measureable parameters. The best estimate of STS mean residence time--primary gyre residence time--was determined to be the first characteristic time of exponential decay. An apparent mean residence time can arise, which is considerably larger than other timescales, if probes are placed within secondary gyre(s). The Langmuir timescale is the minimum mean residence time, and is linearly correlated to channel velocity and STS width. The lateral STS mean residence time can be predicted using a physically based hydromorphic timescale derived by Uijttewaal et al. (2001) with an entrainment coefficient of 0.031 ± 0.009 for the Re and WIL studied. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Simulations of bubble entrainment and interactions with two dimensional vortical flows are preformed using a discrete element model. In this Eulerian-Lagrangian approach, solution to the carrier phase is obtained using direct numerical simulation whereas motion of subgrid bubbles is modeled using Lagrangian tracking. The volumetric displacement of the fluid by the finite size of the bubbles is modeled along with interphase momentum-exchange for a realistic coupling of the bubbles to the carrier phase. In order to assess the importance of this volumetric coupling effect, even at low overall volume loading, simulations of a small number of microbubbles entrained in a traveling vortex tube are studied in detail. The test case resembles the experiments conducted by Sridhar and Katz [JFM, 1999] on bubble entrainment in vortex rings. It is shown that under some conditions, the entrainment of eight small bubbles, 1100 μm or less in diameter, result in significant levels of vortex distortion when modeled using the volumetric coupling effect. Neglecting these effects, however, does not result in any vortex distortion due to entrained bubbles. The nondimensionalized vortex strength versus bubble settling locations are compared with experimental data to show collapse of the data along the trends observed in experiments only when the volumetric effects are modeled. Qualitative and quantitative assessments of this distortion observed with volumetric coupling are made using three methods; bubble induced vortex asymmetry, relative change in the decay of angular momentum, and relative change in the peak vorticity. It is found that in all cases the volumetric effects result in a relative increase of the vortex decay rate. The concept of a relative reaction force, defined as the ratio of net bubble to fluid reaction to the local driving force of the vortex, is introduced to analyze this effect. It is shown that the global increases in vortex decay rate are directly proportional to the magnitude of this highly local relative reaction force. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The computation of Lagrangian coherent structures typically involves post-processing of experimentally or numerically obtained fluid velocity fields to obtain the largest finite-time Lyapunov exponent (FTLE) field. However, this procedure can be tedious for large-scale complex flows of general interest. In this work, an alternative approach involving computation of the FTLE on-the-fly during direct numerical simulation of the full three dimensional Navier-Stokes equations is developed. The implementation relies on Lagrangian particle tracking to compose forward time flow maps, and an Eulerian treatment of the backward time flow map [S. Leung, J. Comput. Phys. 230, 3500-3524 (2011)] coupled with a semi-Lagrangian advection scheme. The flow maps are accurately constructed from a sequence of smaller sub-steps stored on disk [S. Brunton and C. Rowley, Chaos 20, 017503 (2010)], resulting in low CPU and memory requirements to compute evolving FTLE fields. Several examples are presented to demonstrate the capability and parallel scalability of the approach for a variety of two and three dimensional flows. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]