Horizontal Flow And Upwelling Around A Seamount

Seamount is an important part of the marine landscape, and may have significantly impact on the flow around it. When the flow passes over or around the seamount, the upwelling and downwelling may travel along the seamount slope with the horizontal flow around the seamount. Literature review shows that the study of the upwelling and horizontal flow around the seamount is rare. Further studies of the flow around the seamount not only increase knowledge of fluid mechanics but also are of practical significance in industry.In this study, a great number of numerical simulations have been carried out to analyze the horizontal flow and upwelling around the seamount for different Reynolds numbers. It has been demonstrated that the horizontal flow around the seamount is different from the wake around the cylinder. That is, the pattern and intensity of the vortex shedding vary in the vertical direction due to the seamount, depending on the Reynolds number. Additionally, it has been found that the flow above the submarine seamount has a number of the phenomena similar to the vortex shedding back of the submarine seamount.Numerical results show that there exist the upwelling and downwelling alone the slope of the seamount for most of calculation conditions, and the dividing point between the two flows is clear. Further quantitative analysis shows that the position of the dividing point is dependent on the Reynolds number, and the relationship between the position and the Reynolds number has been obtained. Furthermore, the relationship between the vertical flow rate and the Reynolds number is presented.In this paper, a number of numerical simulations of the upwelling and the horizontal flow around the seamount and the submarine seamount was performed, which is used to describ the flow characteristics, analyze the dynamic mechanism and obtain the relationship between the flow rate of the upwelling and the Reynolds number. However, due to the limitation of time, the number of numerical simulations are not sufficient. Further numerical simulations and theoretical analyses as well as the measurement validation should be the focus of the future work.