Hi,
I am planning to couple CFD with DEM to simulate the influence of waves on sand dunes, starting with a wave flume setup. I am relatively new to CFD and DEM. So far, I have prepared my own cases for both CFD and DEM and successfully validated the benchmark particle settling case using CFDEM. Additionally, I have independently used olaFlow with OpenFOAM to generate regular waves.
However, I now wish to integrate olaFlow with OpenFOAM and LIGGGHTS using CFDEM. Is there currently any provision available to achieve this? If not, could you suggest the necessary modifications to CFDEM for coupling them?
Furthermore, I aim to model a three-phase system involving air, water, and granular particles. Is CFDEM compatible with such a setup? If yes, I would greatly appreciate it if you could share relevant resources, such as journal articles, weblinks, or videos, to guide me through this process.
Thank you in advance for your help!
-Ekansh
BT2786 | Fri, 11/07/2025 - 16:26
Advanced CFD–DEM Coupling for Wave–Sediment Interaction: Practic
Hi Ekansh,
That’s a very interesting and ambitious project — coupling olaFlow (for free-surface hydrodynamics) with LIGGGHTS (for DEM particle interaction) through CFDEM is a powerful approach for studying wave–sediment interaction, especially for nearshore or flume-based research.
Here are a few pointers that may help you move forward:
1. CFDEM + olaFlow Coupling Feasibility
Currently, there’s no direct out-of-the-box implementation integrating olaFlow with CFDEM. olaFlow handles VOF-based two-phase flow (air–water) quite efficiently, while CFDEM traditionally couples a single-phase OpenFOAM solver with LIGGGHTS for particle-fluid interaction cfd simulation.
To achieve a full three-phase (air–water–sand) simulation, you’ll need to modify the interphase momentum exchange routines in CFDEM to accommodate the VOF interface treatment from olaFlow.
2. Alternative Workflows
Some researchers achieve similar results by using olaFlow to pre-compute the free-surface hydrodynamics, then exporting velocity fields into CFDEM as boundary-driven flow fields for DEM sediment response. While this is not a fully coupled approach, it reduces complexity and computational overhead while still capturing realistic wave forcing on particles.
3. References & Resources
The CFDEM® coupling manual (GitHub) details the source structure for inter-phase force exchange.
Papers by Goniva et al. and Kloss et al. (2012) provide insight into extending CFDEM to multiphase problems.
You might also explore “Extended CFD–DEM modelling of fluid–sediment interaction under oscillatory flow” (Computers & Fluids, 2020) for a validated approach.
4. Practical Consideration
When going into production-scale studies (e.g., full dune morphodynamics or breakwater simulation), computational cost and solver stability become major challenges. Commercial codes such as STAR-CCM+, used by professional CFD consultants, can handle hybrid Eulerian–Lagrangian modelling more robustly — particularly when coupled with turbulence, heat, or multi-species transport.
If you ever need support beyond the research setup — such as scaling up to industrial-grade CFD–DEM simulation or validating through CFD analysis of sediment hydrodynamics — you might want to look into BroadTech Engineering
. They’re a Singapore-based engineering consultancy with deep experience in CFD analysis
for marine, environmental, and offshore systems, including sediment transport and free-surface interaction. Their engineers are quite hands-on with OpenFOAM and commercial solvers like STAR-CCM+, so they might offer some practical guidance or validation services.
Keep us posted on your progress — this is a fascinating area of CFD–DEM coupling research, and many in the community will benefit from your findings.
Cheers,
Daniel