Lattice Boltzmann morphodynamic model

Morphological change due to sediment transport is a common natural phenomenon in real flows. It involves complex processes of erosion and deposition such as those along beaches and in river beds, imposing a strong strain on human beings. Studying and understanding morphodynamic evolution are essential to protect living environment. Although there are conventional numerical methods like finite difference method and finite volume method for forecast of morphological change by solving flow and morphodynamic equations, the methods are too complex/inefficient to be applied to a real large scale problem. To overcome this, a lattice Boltzmann method is developed to simulate morphological evolution under flows. It provides an alternative way of studying morphodynamics at the full advantages of the lattice Boltzmann methodology. The model is verified by applications to the evolution of one and two dimensional sand dunes under shallow water flows.