Assistant Professor, Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering
Utah State University
Bio:
Som is originally from India, and currently he is an Assistant Professor in Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering, Utah State University. After completing his graduate studies at University of Illinois (UIUC) in Civil Engineering; he did his post-doctoral training in Scientific Computing and Mathematics at UIUC and City University of New York (CUNY), respectively. Som is interested in studying complex flow and morphodynamics phenomena in the natural and the built environment using high-fidelity computational fluid dynamic (CFD) models that often require the use of supercomputers. Range of phenomena he is interested in ranges from respiratory aerosol transport to buoyancy driven flows in lakes, rivers and estuaries. Som, has been leading the effort to model the complex flows in Great Salt Lake using computational fluid dynamics and data-driven models. He teaches Fluid Mechanics and CFD at Utah State and has been recognized as the undergraduate research mentor of year for the last two years.
Title: Modeling the Salinity Driven Flow Through the new Union Pacific Bridge, Great Salt Lake: Understanding and quantifying the present to predict the future
Abstract: Great Salt Lake (GSL) is a highly saline lake which has been divided into two parts in the 1959 by the Union Pacific causeway, leading to the Northern part of the lake to be about 80-100 kg/m3 more saline than the Southern part. The difference in densities of the two parts of the Lake results in formation of the deep brine layer (DBL) by the water from the Northern part, which plunges below the Southern water after going through the breaches in the causeway. In 2017, a new breach was opened in the causeway. The 1D flow model that predicted the net flow through the older breaches (now closed culverts) were found to be inadequate to predict the bi-directional flow through the new breach at the new Union Pacific bridge in the causeway.Accurately predicting the net flow through the breach has implications for estimation of the salt balance between the two sides of the GSL [2]. Recently, a new CFD model (figure below) and artificial neural network (ANN) based models have been developed to estimate flow through the new breach. The CFD model of the flow through the lake has been successful in predicting the measured (by USGS) velocity at the lake with an R2 of ~ 0.96. Further development and refinement of the CFD model and the ANN models are ongoing. The overarching objectives of the modeling effort is to develop a rating curves and fast-models, that can predict the flow through the breach for different water surface elevation (WSE) difference between the North and South parts of the Lake, the density difference between the North and South parts of the Lake, and the WSE at the breach.
In my talk, I will provide insights about the flow based on our modeling effort, and what that tells us about the future of the flow through the breach under the specter of changing climate.
Figure 1. CFD simulation of gravity-current through the breach of GSL (from Rasmussen et al., 2021, Water).