Improved Model for Soil as a Two-Phase Mixture Based on Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH)

Abstract

It is desired to resolve soil contamination with reduced costs. “Insoluble treatment” is a soil improvement method for heavy metal containing soil, which uses soil mixers to mix soil and soil improvement liquid agents. To reduce the costs of this method, soil mixers have to be optimized. However, it is not achieved due to the lack of theoretical knowledge on mixing solid with liquid. Therefore, a numerical model to simulate the dynamic behavior of solid and liquid is on the development in this study using Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) method. To validate the numerical model, several experiments were carried out and numerically reproduced. The comparisons of the results showed that the numerical model replicated a liquid flow with an error rate of 2.1% and a seepage flow with an error rate up to 26.1%. Especially, the water distribution in the soil pores was highly improved with absolute gaps in volumetric water content up to 4.4% in the porosity range of 10% - 90%. For the water absorption into dry sand, the simulation result became more realistic by concerning soil suction.