A Numerical Study on the Flow Characteristics of Water and Soil Slurry in Pipe

Abstract

This study described the phenomena of transport and sedimentation of soil slurry flowed in storm sewers from the perspective of numerical analysis. There have been some research cases reviewing the characteristics of flows inside of storm sewers. Most existing researches have performed experiments and analyses based on a flow of single fluid in conduits. However, this study tried to interpret such a flows as a two-phase flow by taking into account soil slurry, and it also tried to deduce results on the change of flow velocity and volume fraction, as well as characteristics of sedimentation to study the tendency of transport and sedimentation inside of the conduits. In addition, it should be necessary to produce theories and analytical basis which can support design criteria for sedimentation inside of conduits based on the analysis of internal flows in storm sewers. Because of difficulties in observing and interpreting two-phase flows made of soil slurry, there have been few studies on this subject, the objective of this study was to examine this part. Accordingly, in case of soil slurry flowed into real manholes, this study reviewed the characteristics of flows generated inside of conduits by reflecting the rate of flow caused by outflow and that of inflow occurred in mixed forms. This study also checked the scope of impact of discharge capacity caused by sedimentation occurred inside of conduits, and improved the already proposed prediction model of critical sediment depth within storm sewers. When comparing with the proposed model, it was confirmed that this new model showed higher correlation ratio. Keywords: Numerical Analysis, Soil Slurry, Transport, Sedimentation, Two-phase Flow, Discharge Capacity