Article
Large eddy simulation of turbulence and solute transport in a forested headwater stream
Journal of Geophysical Research
(2016)
Abstract
The large eddy simulation (LES) module of the Virtual StreamLab (VSL3D) model is applied to simulate the flow and transport of a conservative tracer in a headwater stream in Minnesota, located in the south Twin Cities metropolitan area. The detailed geometry of the stream reach, which is ∼135 m long, ∼2.5 m wide, and ∼0.15 m deep, was surveyed and used as input to the computational model. The detailed geometry and location of large woody debris and bed roughness elements up to ∼0.1 m in size were also surveyed and incorporated in the numerical simulation using the Curvilinear Immersed Boundary approach employed in VSL3D. The resolution of the simulation, which employs up to a total of 25 million grid nodes to discretize the flow domain, is sufficiently fine to directly account for the effect of large woody debris and small cobbles (on the streambed) on the flow patterns and transport processes of conservative solutes. Two tracer injection conditions, a pulse and a plateau release, and two cross sections of measured velocity were used to validate the LES results.
Disciplines
Publication Date
2016
DOI
DOI: 10.1002/2014JF003423
Citation Information
Peter Richard Wilcock. "Large eddy simulation of turbulence and solute transport in a forested headwater stream" Journal of Geophysical Research Vol. 121 Iss. 1 (2016) p. 146 - 167 Available at: http://works.bepress.com/peter_wilcock/167/