SewerSedFoam: A Model for Free Surface Flow, Sediment Transport, and Deposited Bed Morphology in Sewers

Abstract

This paper aims to bridge the gap in the detailed modelling of flow and sediment process interactions in sewers through the development of a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model. It draws on previous models developed for surface water sediment transport in the OpenFOAM CFD framework and builds on them to improve their suitability for sewer sediment processes. Three distinct sediment processes, suspended sediment transport, bedload transport, and deposited bed morphology, are incorporated into a free surface flow solver, interFoam. This sewer sediment model, called SewerSedFoam, models the impacts of sediment deposition and erosion on flow velocity by using dynamic mesh deformation to capture the movement of the deposited bed and its morphology. Further, three sediment classes, two suspended and one bedload sediment, can be modelled along with some bed stabilization and consolidation effects during deposition and erosion, respectively. The functionality of the overall model in modelling sewer sediment deposition and erosion is promising, although the validation of a large magnitude sediment erosion event has been limited by the availability of granular data in existing case studies.