Flow-3D Analysis on the Scour Characteristics of Artificial Reef-Installed Soils with Various Particle Sizes

Abstract

Artificial reef-installed seabeds may have significantly different scouring patterns depending on the ground conditions, such as the soil particle size, even though the flow velocity and water depth are similar. In this study, the scour characteristics of the ground were determined using Flow-3D to evaluate the geotechnical stability of artificial reefs installed on various seabeds, such as sand, silt, and clay. The analysis results indicated that the smaller the particle size of the soil, the larger the amount of scour that occurs around the artificial reef and the longer it takes to reach an equilibrium state. However, eroded soil particles were deposited on the rear part of the artificial reef as the soil particle size increased. The maximum scour depth and average particle size showed a non-linear relationship. In particular, the maximum scour depth increased significantly in fine-grained soils.

Subsidence of Artificial Reefs with Bamboo Foundations on a Soft Seabed

“…Yun and Kim [6] found that ARs deployed on footings made of geogrid or hybrid geogrid-bamboo mat reduced their settlement remarkably. Yun and Kim [7,8] prepared three reinforcement types: geogrid, geogrid-bamboo mat (GBM) and seaweed-pile mat (SPM) and performed bearing capacity tests, large size settlement tests and two-dimensional flow scour tests according to the different soil types (sand, silt, clay). They observed that the bearing capacity of the seabed with a reinforced artificial reef increased, and its settlement and scour depth reduced for all reinforcement types.…”