Improving the prediction capability of numerical models for particle motion in water bodies

Proceedings of the Seventh International Conference on Hydroscience and Engineering, Philadelphia, PA, September 2006. http://hdl.handle.net/1860/732The Basset force plays an important role in the momentum equations for relatively-small solid particles moving close to a river bed. This force can make the numerical solution of these equations computationally time- and memory-consuming. Reduction of the computational cost of the Basset term is therefore strongly needed. In this paper, we present and discuss a two-stage methodology to deal with the difficulties associated with the Basset force. First, we use an approximation of the Basset term based on a semi-derivative (fractional mathematics); second, we redefine the integration time of the term proposing the use of a number of previous jumps. Important savings in computational time are reported