Numerical investigate of the effects of surface roughness on local scour around pipeline under steady current condition

A two-dimensional numerical model was developed to investigate the effects of the surface roughness on local scour around pipeline based on Naiver-Stokes equations. Both suspended load and bedload transport are considered for the sand motion equation. Present numerical model is verified accurately for simulating local scour around pipeline. The numerical results show that the surface roughness has a significant effect on the process of local scour, i.e. forces, Shields parameter and scour depth. For rough pipeline, the average value of the drag force coefficient on the pipeline, the RMS value of the lift coefficient, the scour depth and the scour width all decrease rapidly with increasing roughness and then change slowly.

Automated summary

This paper developed a two-dimensional numerical model to investigate the effects of surface roughness on local scour around pipelines. The results showed that increasing roughness led to a rapid decrease in scour depth, followed by a slower change.