Exner diagnosis method for two-fluid morphodynamics simulations

Mass balance in sediment transport is often associated with single-phase flow model through the resolution of the Exner equation. In this contribution, the mass balance is derived from the two-phase flow, two-fluid, model equations and compared with the conventional single-phase flow approach. Five terms are identified from the two-phase flow formulation: the bed evolution, the storage evolution, the lateral flux, the bed flux and the top flux. Three different flow configurations with increasing complexity are tested, namely a one dimensional pure sedimentation, a two dimensional scour downstream an apron and a three dimensional scour around a vertical square cylinder. The mass balance formulation identifies the driving process of an erosion or a deposition process in each case. This approach can be applied on other configurations related with sediment flux and morphology bed evolution such as scour process.