Eulerian–Eulerian multiphase models for simulating collapse of submarine sediment column with rheological characteristics in air–water flow

Submarine massive sediment movement, which may devastate submarine infrastructure and cause huge waves threatening the coastal areas, combined with the air–water interface is a significant issue of the multiphase flows in the areas of ocean engineering and geoscience. Currently, simulating rheology-based sediment flows is still a challenge because of the complex intergranular dynamics and its coupling with computational fluid dynamics. In particular, air–water–sediment multiphase models that can simulate such rheology-based flows while also taking into account the accurate capture of the air–water interface have not been developed yet. Coupling with the coupled level set method and volume of fluid method in the air–water two-phase flow, this study develops two new Eulerian–Eulerian multiphase models for simulating the rheology-based sediment flows. The difference between the two developed models is that how to model the drag force of the particle–fluid interactions. To demonstrate their capabilities, the two developed models are employed to simulate the gravitational collapse of submarine sediment column in air–water flow with loose-packing case and dense-packing case. The results of collapse process, induced air–water interface fluctuation, and contractancy/diltancy behavior are all agree well with those in previous experiments and simulations. In addition, comparing the results of two developed models, it can be concluded that different modeling methods of the drag force not only directly affect the water–sediment interactions, but also indirectly influence the air–water interface fluctuations and the intergranular stresses remarkably.