DESTRUCTION PREDICTION OF A RUBBLE MOUND WEIR USING VOF-DEM COUPLED MODEL

Abstract

Nature friendly hydraulic structures such as a rubble mound weir have attracted attention in recent years. Therefore, it is important to establish an analytical model to analyze the flow around such a porous weir. The aim of this study is to develop a destruction prediction model for the rubble mound weir under a gradual increase of discharge. The VOF (Volume of Fluid) method was used for the flow analysis around and through the rubble mound weir, and the DEM (Distinct Element Method) was used to express the failure process. A proposed VOF-DEM coupled model can feed back the movement of the DEM particles to the flow analysis of the VOF. It is confirmed that the proposed model can reproduce the step by step destruction of the rubble mound weir similar to the experimental results.