Front velocity and structure of bottom gravity currents with a low volume of release propagating in a porous medium

The paper reports results of large eddy simulations of lock exchange compositional gravity currents with a low volume of release advancing in a horizontal, long channel. The channel contains an array of spanwise-oriented square cylinders. The cylinders are uniformly distributed within the whole channel. The flow past the individual cylinders is resolved by the numerical simulation. The paper discusses how the structure and evolution of the current change with the main geometrical parameters of the flow (e.g., solid volume fraction, ratio between the initial height of the region containing lock fluid and the channel depth, ratio between the initial length and height of the region containing lock fluid) and the Reynolds number. Though in all cases with a sufficiently large solid volume fraction the current transitions to a drag-dominated regime, the value of the power law coefficient, α, describing the front position’s variation with time (x _f  ~ t ^α , where t is the time measured from the removal of the lock gate) is different between full depth cases and partial depth cases. The paper also discusses how large eddy simulation (LES) results compare with findings based on shallow-water equations. In particular, LES results show that the values of α are not always equal to values predicted by shallow water theory for the limiting cases where the current height is comparable, or much smaller, than the channel depth.