Simulating Sediment Transport around a Bridge Pier Using Open FOAM Software

In this study, the movement of sediment particles around a bridge pier was investigated using the OpenFOAM software. The object is to track the transport of sediment particles and get insight of scour hole forming processes around bridge piers. A three dimensional hydrodynamic model coupling with fluid-particle transport over mobile bed, CFDEM coupling open source, was used in this study. The motion of particles was resolved using a discrete element model (DEM), and the flow field was simulated by a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model. To verify the simulated results of scour depth, experiments were conducted in an open channel flume by using a high speed camera. Flow velocity was obtained around the piers after processing the images captured by the camera. To verify the simulated results, the experiment data were compared with the simulated results of sediment transport and scour depth. This integrated numerical and experimental study allows us to investigate sediment dynamic at the particle scale.