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A method is proposed to investigate the steady deformation and the drag of a single droplet in a flowing gas at a high Reynolds number. The volume of fluid (VOF) method is used to model the droplet surface structure. The direct numerical simulation (DNS) method is used to model the gas flow field. In order to avoid the effect of the droplet acceleration on the drag and reduce the computation cost, a body force is added to the droplet to make it fixed at a constant position. The body force is determined by using the Newton iteration procedure. The simulated droplet aspect ratio and the drag coefficient agree well with the published experimental data. Meanwhile, the sources of the drag are analyzed and the effect of the Reynolds number and the Weber numbers on the droplet deformation and the drag are studied. The drag mainly comes from the pressure difference between the droplet-leading zone and the trailing zone, and the turbulence wake would increase the drag. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The bubble drag force correlation plays an important role in the numerical simulation accuracy of gas/liquid flows. In order to systematically investigate the interphase drag force of non-buoyancy driven bubbly flows, a dynamic-positioning body force (DPBF) method is developed in this study. It is proved that this method has an enough computation precision. Using this method, a series of direct numerical simulation (DNS) cases of a single bubble with low-intermediate Re(1 ≤ Re ≤ 200) and a bubble swarm with low Re(5.6 ≤ Re ≤45) are carried out and the bubble drag coefficients are calculated. Based on all the DNS data, the drag correlations with dimensionless parameters (Re, We for a single bubble and Re, We, gas fraction for bubble swarm) are systematically investigated and reported in this paper, which can provide a reference to the development of drag force closure model for non-buoyancy driven bubbly flows. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aquatic vegetation can significantly affect flow structure, sediment transport, bed scour and water quality in rivers, lakes, reservoirs and open channels. In this study, the lattice Boltzmann method is applied for performing the two dimensional numerical simulation of the flow structure in a flume with rigid vegetation. A multi-relaxation time model is applied to improve the stability of the numerical scheme for flow with high Reynolds number. The vegetation induced drag force is added in lattice Boltzmann equation model with the algorithm of multi-relaxation time in order to improve the simulation accuracy. Numerical simulations are performed for a wide range of flow and vegetation conditions and are validated by comparing with the laboratory experiments. Analysis of the simulated and experimentally measured flow field shows that the numerical simulation can satisfactorily reproduce the laboratory experiments, indicating that the proposed lattice Boltzmann model has high accuracy for simulating flow-vegetation interaction in open channel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The hydrodynamics of turbulent flow through submerged flexible vegetation is investigated in a flume using acoustic Doppler velocimetery (ADV) measurements. The flow characteristics such as the energetics and momentum transfer derived from conventional spectral and quadrant analyses are considered as the flow encounters a finite vegetation patch. Consistent with numerous canopy flow experiments, a shear layer and coherent vortex structures near the canopy top emerge caused by Kelvin–Helmholtz instabilities after the flow equilibrates with the vegetated layer. These instabilities are commonly attributed to velocity differences between non-vegetated and vegetated canopy layers in agreement with numerous experiments and simulations conducted on dense rigid canopies. The power-spectral density function for vertical velocity turbulent fluctuations at different downstream positions starting from the edge of the vegetation layer are also computed. For a preset water depth, the dominant dimensionless frequency is found to be surprisingly invariant around 0.027 despite large differences in vegetation densities. The ejection and sweep events significantly contribute to the Reynolds stresses near the top of the vegetation. The momentum flux carried by ejections is larger than its counterpart carried by the sweeps above the canopy top. However, the momentum flux carried by sweeps is larger below the top of the canopy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Flow through submerged rigid vegetation has been studied both analytically and experimentally. The Reynolds stress, present in the governing equation, has been modeled using one of the turbulent stress equations, adopted in numerous cases. The advantage of this turbulent stress model is to replace the mixing length nonlinear term of the stress with a linear relation between stress and the velocity gradient. The velocity field and shear stress are obtained by solving the governing force balance equation numerically. A correlation, validated with the experimental results, has been developed for the relevant non-dimensional numbers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides new guidance concerning the hydrodynamic loads on submerged intake structures located in shallow water under breaking and non-breaking waves. Results from a series of experiments conducted in a large wave flume at 1:15 scale to study the hydrodynamic forces exerted on a generic intake structure located on a sloping seabed in shallow water below breaking and non-breaking irregular waves are presented. Based on analysis of the experimental data, empirical relationships are developed to describe the peak loads in terms of characteristic wave parameters such as significant wave height and peak wave period. The distribution of the peak loads across different parts of the intake structure is also described. Drag and inertia force coefficients for the horizontal forcing on the intake structure and for the main structural sub-components are derived and presented. It is shown that the well-known Morison equation, with appropriate drag and inertia force coefficients, can provide reasonable estimates of the moderate horizontal loads, but the peak loads are less well predicted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, many channelized rivers tend to be heavily vegetated due to regime shifts in hydrological, fluvial and ecological processes. Dense vegetation in a river frequently obstructs a flood flow and reduces conveyance capacity of channels. On the other hand, river vegetation provides various ecological services such as habitats for various species and life, natural cycle of organic and inorganic substances, etc‥ It is of engineering importance to understand vegetation hydrodynamics in order to preserve vegetation nature and keep a certain level of flow conveyance capacity. In view that willows tend to be densely vegetated along the shoreline of floodplains or sandbars, a field measurement, a physical model experiment and a numerical analysis were carried out for investigating hydrodynamics in an open channel with riparian vegetation. Discussion was made focusing on flow and shear layer structures developed around the vegetation canopy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To reliably estimate water levels and velocities in vegetated rivers and floodplains, flow resistance models based on physical plant properties are advantageous. The purpose of this study is (1) to assess the suitable parameterization of woody riparian vegetation in estimating the drag forces, (2) to address the effect of plant scale on the drag estimates and reconfiguration, and (3) to evaluate the applicability of three recently developed flow resistance models. Experiments on four tree species in a towing tank together with detailed characterization of tree properties were carried out to establish a novel dataset. Despite the variability in the tree height (0.9 m–3.4 m), the stem, leaf and total areas proved to be suitable characteristic dimensions for estimating the flow resistance at different scales. Evaluations with independent data revealed that the tested models produced reasonable results. The performance of the models was controlled by the parameter values used rather than the model structure or the plant scale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 3-D lattice Boltzmann method is applied to evaluate the forces exerted on a stationary spherical particle in current and wave boundary layer flow in order to analyze the forces contributing to the incipient motion of the sediment particle. Results indicate that for current, the forces reach statistically steady finally at a relative low particle Reynolds number (less than 40). The streamwise drag force is the main driven force while the effect of the spanwise force can be ignored. The reason that results in the phenomenon is also discussed. As for the wave, the cyclical nature of the flow makes the evolution of drag and lift forces become quasi-periodic. The streamwise drag force is still the main driven force, but it changes direction with the flow. Meanwhile, the spanwise vorticity and the pressure around the particle show asymmetric distribution. The influence of spanwise force on the particle can not be neglected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the transverse distributions of the depth averaged velocity and the Reynolds stress in a steady uniform flow in partially vegetated rectangular channels. The momentum equation is expressed in dimensionless form and solved to obtain the depth averaged velocity. The analytical solution of the velocity in dimensionless form shows that the depth-averaged velocity is determined by gravity and its distribution is mainly determined by the frictions due to water or vegetations. The analytical solution of the Reynolds stress is also obtained. A relationship between the second flow and the inertia is established and it is assumed that the former is proportional to the square of the depth averaged velocity. The Acoustic Doppler Velocimeter (Micro ADV) was used to measure the steady uniform flow with emergent artificial rigid vegetation. Comparisons between the measured data and the computed results show that our method does well in predicting the transverse distributions of the stream-wise velocity and the Reynolds stress in rectangular channels with partially vegetations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Submerged vegetation has a significant impact on water flow velocity. Current investigations include the impact through adding drag resistance and increasing bottom roughness coefficient, which cannot elucidate the characters of real submerged vegetation. To evaluate the effects of submerged vegetation on water currents at different velocities, a laboratory experiment was conducted using three kinds of vegetations. The effective heights of these vegetations on varying flow velocities were evaluated. An equation describing the relationship between the normalized resistance of the submerged plants and the Reynolds number based on the plant effective height was then established and used to calculate the hydraulic resistance parameters of submerged plants in different stages of growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The settling and hydrodynamic properties of 3-D fractal flocs in quiescent water are investigated with a numerical model based on the Lattice Boltzmann Method (LBM), with considering the settling velocity, hydrodynamic drag force and infra-floc flow. The comparisons of floc settling velocities and effective densities indicate that the numerical results present good agreements with observations in field and at laboratory. The results show that the drag force FD increases with the floc size df according to the relationship FD ∞ d3f. Moreover, the intra-floc flow field and movement of the pore water provide a better understanding of the intra-floc flow from the microscopic viewpoint. The results also indicate that the lattice Boltzmann method is a promising approach to reveal the mechanisms of the flocculation in aquatic environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aquatic vegetation has significant effects on flow in waters. In this article, four types of water areas were analyzed according to the field survey on water depth and vegetation in the Nansi Lake for the East Line Project of Water Transfer from South to North in China (WTSNC). The depth-averaged 2-D hydrodynamic models with and without consideration of the effects of aquatic vegetation on flow were established to simulate flow fields in vegetated and non-vegetated zones in the Nansi Lake. With the established models, flow fields were predicted under the conditions of water transfer from south to north. The results indicate that when the drag force term exerted by aquatic vegetation is considered, the computed velocities agree well with the measured data, whereas as the drag term is taken into account, the computed velocities are obviously larger than the measured data in the vegetated zone and considerably smaller in the non-vegetated zone, and the error range between the two velocities is large if this problem is dealt with the method of increasing the roughness coefficient of the lake-bed to reflect the vegetation drag force. In addition, it is demonstrated that the emerged vegetation exerts larger effects on flow than submerged vegetation comparing the results in the Emerged Vegetation (reed) Zone (EVZ) and the Submerged Vegetation Zone (SVZ). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]