Extending the Particle Finite Element Method for sediment transport simulation

Abstract

The present work extends the capabilities of the Particle Finite Element Method (PFEM), which allows modeling of soil–fluid–structure interaction problems, to allow the modeling of sediment transport and scouring effects. This is accomplished by implementing scouring rules on an evolving scourable-interface, i.e. the interface surface between fluid and soil. The proposed method improves upon previous proposals by jointly capturing both the temporal and spatial scales of scouring evolution, as shown in the presented validation exercise, and also because its parametrization is conforms with commonplace engineering procedures for scouring prediction. The extension preserves desirable PFEM properties such as conservation of mass, mesh-size independence, and stability of the numerical solution of the PFEM equations and adds a negligible computational overhead to the PFEM implementation.