CFD Simulation of Flow in a Circular Pipe With Percina Rex Fish

We tried to correlate the fish behavior observed in the laboratory during the development of the exhaustion threshold curves with flow field in the fish passage with culverts and other impediments. In particular, we focused on aspects of fish behavior which may have exploited the velocity and turbulence fields in a circular passage. Roanoke logperch ( Percina rex ), the largest of the Virginia’s darters are federally endangered species. Logperch of different sizes were tested during the development of the exhaustion threshold curves at different velocities ranging from 40 to 70 cm/s in the laboratory in a circular pipe. The pipe was divided into four quadrants in the streamwise direction. Simulations were run at velocities 40 and 70 cm/s using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) software Fluent with fish at center and bottom of the pipe. The velocity and turbulence kinetic energy contours of all the positions of the fish were compared to correlate the fish behavior observed in the laboratory.