In the paper, a mesh-free method called smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) is presented to deal with seepage problem in porous media. In the SPH method, the computational domain is discredited by means of some nodes, and there is no need for computational domain meshing. Therefore, it can be said that it is a truly mesh-free approach. The method has been applied to analyze seepage problem in earth dams and foundations. The results were compared with ones obtained by analyzing with the finite element-based software, Geostudio (SEEP/W). There was a good agreement between results. Moreover, the SPH method is efficient and capable of seepage analysis specifically for the problems with complex geometry.
The present paper deals with the numerical detection of cavitation damage level and location on dam spillways. At first, flow over a spillway was simulated using the computational fluid dynamics method. The flow characteristics such as pressure, velocity and depth through the spillway have been calculated for five different flow rates. Since the actual flow is turbulent, the RNG turbulence model has been used for simulation. The numerical results of flow characteristics including flow depth, velocity and pressure were compared with the available results of the hydraulic model tests. The numerical results agreed well with the experimental data, and reasonable values for the normalized root mean square error (NRMSE= 0.0476) and coefficient of determination (r2=0.8354) indicated that the numerical model is accurate. Finally occurrence of cavitation damage to the Doosti dam spillway was investigated. Based on cavitation index, five different damage levels from no damage to major damage have been considered. Results showed that the spillway may be at the risk of cavitation damage, and the serious damage can occur at ending parts of the structure.
The prediction of contaminant transport in porous media is an important problem in order to prevent the pollution propagation in groundwater. The present model is developed by coupling two mesh-free approaches in order to overcome the restrictions of mesh-dependent methods. In this model, the ground water flow model is developed by analytic-element method and the contaminant transport model is developed by point collocation method in an unconfined aquifer. The model was developed and implemented by Python object-oriented programming language. A particle swarm optimization algorithm has been also utilized to calibrate the model. The model was applied for contamination transport in Astaneh-Kuchesfahan groundwater in north of Iran. Comparison of the model results with the observed data represents a reasonable agreement and capability of the present model in contaminant transport modeling. Moreover, the calculated value for coefficient of determination (R 2 = 0.89) indicates that the calibrated parameters are acceptable.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.