A Comparative Study on 2D CFD Simulation of Flow Structure in an Open Channel with an Emerged Vegetation Patch Based on Different RANS Turbulence Models

Abstract

Aquatic plants widely exist in rivers, which can affect the flow structure in rivers and have an important impact on the evolution of river morphology. The emerged vegetation is an important member of aquatic vegetation in the river, so studying the flow structure around the emerged vegetation patches is of great significance. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation provides support for the related research works. Applying the appropriate turbulence model is crucial to achieving realistic numerical simulation results. In this study, two-dimensional numerical simulations were carried out and compared with experimental data by six different Reynolds-Averaged Navier–Stokes (RANS) turbulence models, i.e., Standard k-ε model, Renormalization group (RNG) k-ε model, Realizable k-ε model, Standard k-ω model, Shear-stress transport (SST) k-ω Model, and the Reynolds stress model (RSM). CFD is an effective research method, and the results showed that there are different simulation performances with different turbulence models. The shear stress transport k-ω model achieves the most consistent numerical simulation results with the experimental data for the longitudinal mean flow velocity distribution at the centerline, and the Reynolds stress model provides the least consistent numerical simulation with the experimental data. Then the performance of the six models in simulating the flow field characteristics and longitudinal outflow after vegetation patch was compared.