Evaluation of erosion of fracture infilling materials in rock foundations under dams by a coupled CFD-DEM approach

In this report, a coupled Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD)-Discrete Element Method (DEM) approach is employed to model the incipient motion of fracture infillings in a three-dimensional rock fracture. The approach visualizes and quantitatively analyzes the erosion process of the fracture infillings, which provides a reference to predict the threshold of the infilling erosion. The results could lead to a better understanding of internal erosion of fracture infilling materials and is expected to contribute to the knowledge for the design of grout curtains under dams.