An Experimental Study with CFD Simulation of Horizontal Flow Through Porous Media

摘要

Permeability is an important characteristic of porous media suitable in dealing with problems associated with drainage of water bearing strata, seepage through earthen dams, stability of earthen dams, and embankments of canal bank affected by seepage,settlement underneath the hydraulic structures etc. Seepage below the hydraulic structures which often becomes the cause of failure of such structures is a function of permeability. This paper reports an experimental and software based investigation ofthe horizontal permeability of saturated soils namely coarse sand, fine sand, fly ash and silt. Horizontal permeability of theses porous materials was determined at 40% porosity, using a large 3-D custom designed permeameter using constant head method. The observed permeability data was then compared with the permeability obtainedfrom Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulation of horizontalflow through theses permeable materials using Fluent 14.0 software. The observed and simulated permeability wasfound in close proximity for these materials.