Upcoming Webcasts
Computational Investigation of Gravity and Turbidity Currents
Lecturer: Eckart Meiburg - Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of California, Santa Barbara
Air Date: Friday, November 6th at 2:00 p.m.
Abstract: We will present an overview of high-resolution, Navier-Stokes based simulations of gravity and turbidity currents, with the focus on the standard lock-exchange configuration. The turbidity currents we consider are driven by particles that have negligible inertia and are much smaller than the smallest length scales of the buoyancy-induced fluid motion. For the mathematical description of the particulate phase an Eulerian approach is employed, with a transport equation for the particle-number density. The governing equations are integrated numerically with high-order, mixed compact finite difference and spectral/spectral-element techniques. We will discuss differences between two- and three-dimensional turbidity current dynamics, and we will introduce some effects due to complex topography. Results will be shown regarding the unsteady interaction of a gravity current with a submarine structure, such as a pipeline. Furthermore, we will discuss the linear stability problem of channel and sediment wave formation by turbidity currents.