Modelling Turbulent Flow in Deformable Highly Porous Seabed and Structures

Abstract

In this study, the fully-coupled and fully-dynamic Biot governing equations in the open-source geotechFoam solver are extended to account for pore fluid viscous stresses. Additionally, turbulent pore fluid flow in deformable porous media is modeled by means of the conventional eddy viscosity concept without the need to resolve all turbulence scales. A new approach is presented to account for porous media resistance to flow (solid-to-fluid coupling) by means of an effective viscosity, which accounts for tortuosity, grain shape and local turbulences induced by flow through porous media. The new model is compared to an implemented extended Darcy-Forchheimer model in the Navier-Stokes equations, which accounts for laminar, transitional, turbulent and transient flow regimes. Further, to account for skeleton deformation, the porosity and other model parameters are updated with regard to strain of geomaterials. The presented model is calibrated by means of available results of physical experiments of unidirectional and oscillatory flows.