Effect of sedimentation on 3D turbidity currents

Abstract

In this paper a mathematical model for 3D turbidity currents has been presented. The model consists in a system of partial differential equations in conservative form, formulated in the framework of the shallow water equations and it accounts for the main features of the turbidity currents: entrainment of environment fluid, settling and resuspension of particles, variation of density. A numerical investigation has been performed to assess the influence of the settling of particles on the turbidity current. To this aim different turbidity currents have been simulated, with the same excess density and initial volume, but realized with silicon carbide particles with increasing diameter. Numerical results are compared with experimental results by La Rocca et al.[8]. The agreement is fairly good and shows the ability of the proposed model in reproducing the main features of the physical phenomenon