Upwind Finite Element Model for Suspended Sediment Transport

The unsteady 2D convection and diffusion equation is solved numerically for the real-time simulation of suspended load propagation. The streamlined upwind scheme efficiently reduces numerical oscillations due to the high Peclet number in the convection dominant flow. By using the mixed boundary condition to express the external source terms or externally induced suspended load as a function of time in the algorithm, the model is capable of handling not only continuous load cases but also non-continuous suspended load influx. The suspended load transport modelwas verified using a case study for which an analytical exact solution is available and was applied to the real-time simulation of a suspended load influx case on the Mississippi River. The model algorithm can provide a framework upon which water quality as well as contaminant transport models can be built.