Verification of numerical study of scour around spur dikes using experimental data

Abstract

Abstract Scour phenomenon around a series of impermeable, nonsubmerged spur dikes has been investigated with both experimental and numerical methods. The experiments were conducted under different states of flow intensity ( U / U cr ). The scour geometry was measured with a high‐resolution laser bed‐profiler ( LBP ). For the numerical simulation phase, a three‐dimensional computational fluid dynamics ( CFD ) model, namely SSIIM 2.0, was used to compute the sediment transport around the spur dikes. The numerical model was based on the finite‐volume method. Two turbulence models, namely k‐ε standard and k‐ε with re‐normalization group ( RNG ) extensions, were used to predict turbulence, and the k‐ε model with some RNG extensions was selected because of its best agreement with the measurements. Furthermore, a variety of grids and empirical sediment transport equations were used to find the best state for simulation of scour around a series of spur dikes. Finally, a comparison between experimental and numerical results was carried out to verify the CFD model.