Numerical study on the hydrodynamic properties of bentonite slurries with Herschel-Bulkley-Papanastasiou rheology model

During the construction of slurry shield tunnels, bentonite slurries play a significant part in maintaining excavation face stability where suitable slurries infiltrate into the stratum to form an impermeable filter cake. To enhance filter cake quality, accurate prediction of the hydrodynamic properties of bentonite slurries is always required during slurry parameters design. The main purpose of this study is to investigate the flow characteristics of bentonite slurries with different polymer contents using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation. Mixtures of sodium bentonite powder, carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC), and water in different ratios were prepared, and a series of indoor rheological tests were conducted. Then an optimized numerical method for slurry flow simulation was developed by incorporating the Herschel- Bulkley-Papanastasiou (HBP) rheology model with the finite volume method (FVM). The proposed model was implanted in OpenFOAM, and then applied to theoretical cases of non-Newtonian plane-Poiseuille flow for model verification. Results show the theoretical and simulation results were in good accordance, with a successful description of the shear thinning characteristics of fluids and no divergency during the numerical solution procedure. Based on it, CFD simulations were implemented to investigate pipe flow characteristics of bentonite slurries with different CMC contents. Results indicate when the inlet velocity is constant, the decrease of pipe diameter can cause a more inhomogeneous flow and the growth of pressure drop; rises in rheological parameters can all increase the energy consumption and reduce the infiltration distance. When the yield stress is 25 Pa, the pressure drop reaches a maximum value of 5.47 kPa, compared with 2.69 kPa for slurries with a yield stress of 5 Pa. Furthermore, the infiltration law of bentonite slurries in pipes essentially conforms to a non-Darcy infiltration with an initial hydraulic gradient i0, which has a positive relationship with yield stress of fluids. i0 increases from 0.082 to 0.414 after adding 0.3% CMC into bentonite slurries. This research can provide significant guidance for the establishment of slurry infiltration theories and relevant numerical simulations.