NUMERICAL MODELING OF NON-NEWTONIAN FLUID MUD FLOW USING FINITE VOLUME METHOD

Stratified flows influenced by buoyancy forces are due to the density difference between one fluid and the surrounding fluid. In many coastal areas and estuaries,especially in the areas near large rivers, fine cohesive sediments are present. The stratified flows due to sediments exhibit a non-Newtonian rheological behavior,and numerical simulation of such flows for perception of their behavior, and management of the dense and mud stratified flows is of great importance. In this paper a nonlinear k-ε turbulence model has been developed and included in the existing hydrodynamic model WISE (Width Integrated Stratified Environments). The implementation of non-isotropy and non-Newtonian rheological behavior is included in the turbulence model. WISE is a 2DV ALE RANS free surface width integrated numerical model and employs a staggered non-orthogonal curvilinear coordinate system (Hejazi et al., 2013). The new model has been verified against the experimental data for several lock-release tests. The numerical predictions of the velocity and density profiles show good agreements with the measured values.