Numerical Simulation of Turbidity Currents: A Progress Report on Development and Applications

Christopher S. Lerch¹, Moshe Strauss², Eckart Meiburg³, Ben Kneller⁴, Michael E. Glinsky¹, Stanislav Kuzmin¹, and Brendon Hall^3
1 BHPBilliton Petroleum Inc, Houston, TX
² NRCN - Israel
³ University of California, Santa Barbara, CA
⁴ University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, United Kingdom

For the last three years BHPBilliton has funded work on the numerical simulation of turbidity currents. This was based on initial work done by Eckart Meiburg and others on a single flow, single grain size current over a flat topography. Through this effort BHPBilliton can now simulate in house multiple flow, multi-grain size currents over any topography. We can also generate detailed graphical displays of the flow dynamics as well as the shape, architecture, grain size, and sorting of the resulting deposit.

Currently the standard simulations run in 2D but previous code has 3D capability and this is being further pursued in a more refined proof of concept model. In addition, large eddy simulations are being tested as an approximation of the current direct numerical simulations in order to decrease expected 3D run times. Examples of various 2D simulations including some done for specific business applications will be shown as well as some of the background theory and learnings behind the work.