Paraná River Project - Results: CFD Modelling

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Another long day of GPS Boils on the Paraná River Mini delta forming in a bartop channel

Computational Fluid Dynamics

The numerical model solves the Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) equations on a regular Cartesian grid, with a Re-Normalized Group theory (RNG) κ-e turbulence model. The velocity and bed morphology data (obtained in a field survey - April 2008) were used to supply boundary conditions. The aDCP data were mapped to the inlet; interpolating to a no-slip boundary and changes in bed morphology across and along the river channel were included using a numerical porosity treatment. The entire 40 km study reach is modelled as a series of regions; here we present results from the first region which is about 11 km long.

Figure 1 - Contour plot of the bed topology and vector map of the velocity at the free surface for the first 11 km of the reach investigated. The vectors are plotted at 150 m resolution. The primary flow direction above the thawleg is still significantly controlled by the thalweg.