Formation of Sand Ripples Under Turbulent Flow Simulated by LES

To simulate the initial formation of sedimentary bedforms, constrained to be in hydraulically smooth turbulent flows under bedload conditions, a numerical model based on Large Eddy Simulation (LES) in a doubly periodic domain has been developed. The numerical model comprises three parts. Given the instantaneous bed geometry, the bed shear stress distribution is obtained from a Large-Eddy-Simulation (LES) method coupled with an Immersed-Boundary-Method (IBM). Flux is estimated by the van Rijn’s formula [1]. Finally, evolution of the bed surface is described by the Exner equation. “Two-dimensional bed” [2] and “three-dimensional bed” models employ, respectively, transversely averaged bed shear stress and instantaneous local shear stress to estimate the bedload flux. Based on this model, the evolution of an initial sand wave has been successfully computed. Compared to the “two-dimensional” [2] model, the three-dimensional model leads to a slightly slower propagation and a smaller sand wave. The tendency of the sand wave evolution in three-dimensional model is two-dimensional during the simulated interval.