A Computational Study of Interaction of Main Channel and Floodplain: Open Channel Flows

The assumption of steady uniform flow permits the computation of the velocity isoline, secondary current and turbulent statistics in open channel flows. However, it becomes important to choose appropriate turbulence models to capture the length scale of turbulence near the interfacial zone of compound channels. This paper not only focusses on capturing the longitudinal vortex and primary mean velocity but also extrapolates the results of numerical analysis to understand the interaction between the main channel and floodplain in asymmetric compound channels. The results of computational fluid dynamics simulation showed that the velocity isoline bulging near the bed of the floodplain and sidewall at the junction, due to high-momentum transport by secondary current, can be captured with Reynolds stress model. Furthermore, by applying the three different cases of channels with varying geometrical aspects, the maximum velocity simulated showed similar results to the experiments where the structure of primary mean velocity is seen to be influenced by momentum transport due to the secondary current.