Flow through double layered porous media perpendicular to bedding plane: An experimental & simulation work

Abstract

Permeability (k) is an essential property of soil and has its importance in various fields of soil mechanics and geotechnical engineering. It is the ease with which water can percolate through the interconnected voids in a soil mass. To determine the permeability of soil samples, experimentation work needs to be carried out. The permeability analysis of layered soil samples, i.e., double-layered or triple-layered soil samples, much more time is consumed to achieve accurate results. So, to bypass this time consumption and laborious physical work, Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) analysis proves to be beneficial. ANSYS Fluent 14 software is a powerful tool which works on CFD technique seems to provide accurate results for permeability analysis as compared to laboratory results. In the present study, CFD analysis of double-layered soil samples is carried out using ANSYS Fluent 14 software, and the results obtained by this technique are compared with the laboratory results. Experimental as well as a numerical study was carried out to determine permeability and pressure drop variation for double layer combinations developed using the five soil types namely gravel (G), coarse sand (CS), fine sand (FS), fly ash (FA) and silt (S), and a formulation was proposed to calculate viscous resistance factor experimentally which was validated through simulation results. The permeable soil layer was modeled as porous media obeying Forchheimer's law.