Numerical simulation of turbidity currents using consistent particle method.

• Based on Taylor series expansion to compute spatial derivatives, the consistent particle method (CPM) is expanded to simulate turbidity current involving sediment convection and turbulence-induced diffusion of water-sediment flow. • The proposed second-order CPM-upwind scheme to compute sediment convection is relatively easy to implement as it does not use kernel function which has the requirements of symmetry and unity. • In computing sediment diffusion, CPM shows very good accuracy for both isotropic diffusivity and anisotropic diffusivity. • In simulating turbidity current due to sudden release of water-sediment mixture into ambient water, the method captures the vortices and Kelvin-Helmholtz instability as well as achieves quantitatively good agreement with experimental results in the frontal motion and deposit density of water-sediment mixture. This paper expands the Consistent Particle Method (CPM) to simulation of turbidity currents with focus on turbulent water-sediment flow. A mixture model is adopted in solving the sediment transport equation to simulate the sediment mass transfer due to settling convection and turbulent diffusion. To compute the gravity-driven convection term, the proposed CPM-upwind scheme is relatively easy to implement as it avoids the use of a kernel function which has the requirements of symmetry and unity. Two sand settling problems demonstrate the good accuracy of the CPM-upwind scheme. For suspended sediment diffusion caused by turbulence, CPM is able to model anisotropic diffusion without the averaging effect caused by the isotropy requirement if a kernel function is used. The validated CPM methodology is then applied to simulate a sudden flow of water-sediment mixture into ambient water. The results of the mixture front motion and sediment deposit density agree well with published experimental results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]