Two-phase flow modelling of sediment suspension in the Ems/Dollard estuary

Understanding and quantifying mud suspension and sediment transport processes are of great importance for effective exploitation and sustainable management of estuarine environments. Event-based predictive models are widely used to identify the key interactions and mechanisms that govern the dynamics involved and to provide the essential parameterisation for assessing the long-term morphodynamic evolution of the estuaries. This study develops a one-dimensional-vertical (1DV) Reynolds averaged two-phase model for cohesive sediments resuspension driven by tidal flows. To capture the time-dependent flocculation process more accurately, a new drag force closure which relates empirically to settling velocity of mud flocs with suspended sediment concentration (SSC) is incorporated into the two-phase model. The model is then applied to simulate mud suspension in the Ems/Dollard estuary during two periods (June and August 1996) of tidal forcing. Numerical predictions of bed shear stresses and sediment concentrations at different elevations above the bed are compared with measured variations. The results confirm the importance of including flocculation effects in calculating the settling velocity of mud flocs and demonstrates the sensitivity of prediction with the settling velocity in terms of flocs concentration. Although the two-phase modelling approach can in principle better capture the essential interactions between fluid and sediment phases, its practical advantages over the simpler single phase approach cannot be confirmed for the data periods simulated, partly because the overall suspended sediment concentration measured is rather low and the interaction between the two phases is weak and also because the uncertainties in the relationship between the settling velocity and flocs concentration.