A morphodynamic model for cohesive sediments transport

ABSTRACT The dynamics of cohesive sediments in natural water bodies is of great importance for coastal engineering. Quite often, it is necessary to assess sedimentological processes in regions where cohesive sediments are prevalent, such as in many harbors. Such assessments poses challenges, especially in quantitative evaluations, as the physics involved in the transport, sedimentation and erosion of cohesive sediments is rather complex. For that, by all means, it is important to have analysis tools capable of computing cohesive sediments dynamics. This paper presents the development of a vertically averaged eulerian transport model for suspended cohesive sediments. Such model is currently available on SisBaHiA®, which is a computational modeling system developed and maintained in COPPE/UFRJ. After describing the model implementation, we present a discussion on consistency and validation tests, for each implemented mechanism within the sedimentological process, with a focus in the erosion and sedimentation fluxes. In sequence, we compare model results with the theoretical results and, for some tests, with the results of the simulations performed with the Delft3D® and Telemac® modeling systems. These models are similar to the one presented in this paper, and are well accepted and widely used on professional projects and studies. The tests showed that the developed model results were consistent for all the evaluated mechanism, and hence it’s positively verified.