Simulation of the Riprap Movement Using the Continuous-Time Random Walking Method

Abstract

During the implementation of the riprap project, the underwater migration process of the stones is quite uncertain because of its difficulty to observe. The process of stone transportation is discrete, which makes it unsuitable to be described by a continuous differential equation. Therefore, considering the distribution of stone jumping and waiting, a continuous-time random walk (CTRW) model is established. Based on the actual engineering data, five schemes simulate the one-dimensional motion of riprap underwater and further discuss the spatial distribution and particle size of the riprap. The results show that the CTRW model can effectively predict the riverbed elevation change behavior caused by the riprap project. The suitability of the model for the prediction of riprap movement decreases first and then increases with the increase in the selected width. This indicates that the randomness of the motion of the riprap causes the width of the observation zone to have a significant effect on the overall behavior of riprap movement. When the width is large enough, the influence of the randomness of the motion can be reduced by the average movement behavior within the observation zone. While the observation time of riprap movement is from a short to long time scale, the transport behavior changes from subdiffusion to normal diffusion behavior.