[karlchapman]

Hello, I am currently modeling a relatively tricky problem concerning the effects of sand erosion in the desert upon the surfaces of a high speed train.

I would like to model the effects of an atmospheric boundary layer physically lifting the sand into the air flow and modeling the erosion effects on the train surfaces. So far I have read all Fluent tutorials available on this subject and none seem to be relevant. I have also read many papers on the subject and some have given me ideas but none are specifically relevant.

The model I have so far is a very basic 2D mesh where I have modeled an atmospheric boundary layer using logarithmic profiles for velocity and turbulence. I have then through reading much literature found that using the mixture model and modeling the slip velocity for a granular flow seems to be the most physical approach. I have solved this model with good results however I obviously only achieve the free surface representation of the sand /air phases. What I would like to do from this stage is to model the particle tracking and erosion, I need to somehow use the DPM model to calculate the sand / air mixture from this stage and hence the erosion.

I guess my ultimate question is can a free surface Volume fraction be turned into particles and therefore tracked using DPM? Possible a UDF to turn Volume fractions to particles?


Any help would be greatly apreciated.

Many Regards
Karl