Modelling the Effects of Fluid-Structure Dynamic Interaction on Aquatic Plants

Aquatic vegetation is an essential component of riverine and coastal ecosystems. Drag forces, local turbulence, and equilibrium reconfigurations strongly depend on the geometric and biophysical properties of the vegetation, which then affect the health of the habitat, transportation phenomena, and flood risk.

Understanding flow-vegetation interactions is of great strategic importance nationally and internationally due to their role in ecosystem restoration and the performance of nature-based solutions (e.g., salt marshes, seagrasses, and mangroves).

Building on previous exploratory investigations led by the academic supervisors, this project aims to establish a computationally efficient nonlinear structural model to capture with a high degree of fidelity the fluid-forced reconfiguration of multi-stem aquatic plants.

First, the principles and range of application of existing single-stem models will be extended by describing multi-stem plants as network-organised structures (i.e., as kinematic chains made of lumped masses, rigid links and rotational springs). Large deformations and nonlinear elasticity will be included in the analyses (i.e., the new model will cater for both material and geometrical nonlinearities).

Second, the project will couple the structural model with a state-of-the-art open-source fluid dynamic solver (namely, OpenFOAM) to rigorously investigate the effects of fluid-structure interaction in several scenarios.

Finally, opportunities for the experimental validation of the numerical results will be actively sought.