ABSTRACT
Soil erosion is one of the major causes of failures in transportation infrastructures. It can trigger severe disasters, such as the failure of dams, settlement of buildings and formation of sinkholes. The simulation of this phenomenon is a challenging task as it involves modelling multiphase interactions. Understanding these interactions can help identify potential factors trig-gering and controlling soil erosion. The present study focuses on leakage induced soil erosion within the embedment and uses coupled computational fluid dynamics–discrete element method (CFD-DEM) to model the same. The paper discusses the challenges and limitations of the adopted numerical framework. The numerical model was able to predict the dynamics of the erosion. Dif-ferent drag models were studied and the suitable one was identified. The effect of coefficient of restitution was also examined. The numerical investigation provided insight into the mechanism of soil erosion from a microscopic perspective.
