CFD STUDIES OF MEANDERING CHANNEL

Abstract

Rivers have always been the lifelines of the civilizations and meandering is a well known natural phenomenon in which a river deviates from its straight path and form a curvature of reverse order. To study the flow characteristics of a meandering river understanding of shear stress distribution in a meander section is of immense importance. Shear stress distribution in a meandering section depends upon various factors like shape of cross section, slope and hydraulic radius etc. Among all these factors sinuosity is a crucial factor which affect the shear stress distribution in a meandering section. This research put forward the effect of variation in sinuosity on shear stress distribution.CFD analysis is adopted over experimental work due to its reliability and accuracy. ANSYS 18.1 is used for the simulation of meandering channels. In this research we design three meandering channels with sinuosity values 1.47, 2.0 and 2.53. Each model is simulated for three different values of discharge i.e. 1,2 and 3 cumec. Hence a total of 9 models are created for the analysis. LES(Large Eddy Simulation) model is used to incorporate turbulence in the model. This model is chosen due to its better performance in open channel simulations. The results show that shear stress on inner wall of meandering channel is more than that on outer wall. Velocity profiles are found to be in agreement with shear stress distribution.