Simulation Analyses of Flow in the Wake Region of Non-uniform Bridge Pier by using Computational Fluid Dynamic

Abstract

The study presents a three-dimensional numerical simulation of turbulentflow field around no uniform bridge piers which they are downstream-facinground- nosed (DS-FRNP) and upstream-facing round- nosed (US-FRNP), werecompared with a circular pier in fixed-bed using the computational fluiddynamics (CFD). In this paper, the flow field passing around the bridge piersis predicted using k- ω standard turbulence model. The predicted flow velocityin x-direction and turbulent kinetic energy (TKE) compares with tested data.Simulated flow velocity and turbulent kinetic energy are in good agreement withexperimental data. Numerical model predicts the flow features such as flowreversal upstream the pier, down flow upstream the pier and flow in wakeregion, the shape of vortices (horse shoe vortex and wake vortex) also capturedby simulation. The discussion of the relation between bridge pier shape andturbulent kinetic energy in this study will help to control the scour aroundbridge piers.