Validation of the resistance of a plate moving through mud

Validation of the resistance of a plate moving through mud: CFD modelling and towing tank experiments

Lovato, S. (TU Delft Rivers, Ports, Waterways and Dredging Engineering; TU Delft Offshore and Dredging Engineering)
Kirichek, Alex (TU Delft Rivers, Ports, Waterways and Dredging Engineering)
Toxopeus, S.L. (Maritime Research Institute Netherlands (MARIN))
Settels, J.W. (Maritime Research Institute Netherlands (MARIN))
Keetels, G.H. (TU Delft Offshore and Dredging Engineering)

2022

When investigating the effect of muddy seabeds on marine vessels using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) software, one challenge is to adequately describe the complex non-Newtonian fluid behaviour of mud. Although a number of rheological models have been proposed in the past, mud sediments are often simply regarded either as highly viscous Newtonian fluids or as Bingham fluids in many engineering applications. In this study, we investigate the accuracy of the Bingham model for numerical predictions of the viscous forces on a plate moving through fluid mud in laminar regime. In this context, a plate could be regarded as the flat bottom of a ship hull. The aim is to provide CFD practitioners with information about the accuracy of the Bingham model for the prediction of the frictional resistance of a ship sailing through fluid mud. This work presents a comparison of experimental and numerical data on the resistance of a plate moving through fluid mud from the Europoort area (Netherlands). Results suggest that the regularised Bingham model can be a reasonable compromise between simplicity and accuracy for CFD simulations to investigate the effect of muddy seabeds on marine vessels. A comparison between CFD data and analytical formulas is also presented.

Mud
Bingham
Yield stress
CFD
Plate
Non-Newtonian
Friction

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:60d32449-1b37-4639-a272-504370a910e4

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.oceaneng.2022.111632

0029-8018

Ocean Engineering, 258

Institutional Repository

journal article

© 2022 S. Lovato, Alex Kirichek, S.L. Toxopeus, J.W. Settels, G.H. Keetels