TMR’s Hydraulics and Flooding Unit has successfully applied Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) since 2016 and has a stand-alone licence for the CFD package FLOW-3D. Currently FLOW-3D is mostly used in the Department to validate empirical form loss coefficients at bridge and culvert structures in commonly used 2-dimensional hydraulic models like TUFLOW, thus reducing modelling uncertainty and ultimately producing better civil road and bridge designs.
CFD is a 3-dimensional analysis based on the Navier-Stokes equations of fluid flow. As well as providing a very rich level of data on how flow interacts with a bridge structure, it can also provide the forces applied by the fluid on the solid surfaces. TMR had not yet explored this latter capability, and the Barron River bridge project provided a unique opportunity to do so.
On the Barron River bridge project in Kuranda, one of the investigated options included strengthening of the existing piers to meet the requirements of flood forces and/or forces due to log impacts on the piers. As this requirement for pier strengthening could have significant impacts on the viability of this option, it was decided to use this project as a pilot test case to investigate some of the additional FLOW-3D modelling capabilities that have not commonly been used to date to explore if this new methodology would offer any benefits to the traditional assessment methods.
Results from this pilot project have been provided to E&T Structures to evaluate whether the results agree with traditional methods or if any lessons could be learnt from this project.
