Entrainment Across a Density Stratified Interface

A floating bottomless containment has been considered to keep a freshwater separated from seawater in an estuary or coastal area. This system is advantageous to reduce a water deterioration by allowing water flowing underneath and costs less than a fixed structure system. The optimal design of the structural system and installation methods are necessary to carry out this project successfully, however, it is a prerequisite to study entrainment rate across a density stratified interface between the freshwater and the saltwater flowing underneath the bottomless containment in order to assess the function viability of such a system. Some earlier research works have considered this topic both theoretically and experimentally. In this study the commercial computational fluid dynamics modelling package called FLUENT. which is able to calculate turbulent motion. is used to simulate the entrainment phenomena and the results are compared with the earlier theoretical and experimental findings. The entrainment rate synthesised numerically in this study has been shown to be capable of yielding good agreement with the test data.