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- Title
A coupled discrete element model for the simulation of soil and water flow through an orifice.
- Authors
Tang, Yao; Chan, Dave H.; Zhu, David Z.
- Abstract
Soil erosion around defective underground pipes can cause ground collapses and sinkholes in urban areas. Most of these soil erosion events are caused by fluidization of the surrounding soil with subsequent washing into defective sewer pipes. In this study, this soil erosion process is simplified as the gradual washout of sand particles mixed with water through an orifice. The discrete element method is used to simulate the large deformation behavior of the sand particles, and the Darcy fluid model is coupled with this approach to simulate fluid flow through porous sand media. A coupled 3D discrete element model is developed and implemented based on this scheme. To simulate previous experiments using this coupled model considering the current computing capacity, we incorporated a 'supply layer' to study the continuous erosion process. The coupled model can predict the erosion flow rates of sand and water and the shape of erosion void. Thus, the model can be used as an effective and efficient tool to investigate the soil erosion process around defective pipes. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
- Subjects
ORIFICE plates (Fluid dynamics); SOIL erosion; HYDRAULICS; POROUS materials; DISCRETE element method; THREE-dimensional imaging
- Publication
International Journal for Numerical & Analytical Methods in Geomechanics, 2017, Vol 41, Issue 14, p1477
- ISSN
0363-9061
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1002/nag.2677