**1. Introduction**

The scour phenomenon is a major cause of the rupture or self-burying of submarine pipelines. This phenomenon has to be accurately predicted during the design process of these submarine structures. An important amount of experimental and numerical studies has been published in the literature to characterize both the shape and the time development of the scour hole. The erosion under a submarine pipeline can be decomposed into three steps: (1) the onset; when the current around the cylinder is strong enough, it generates a pressure drop, which liquefies the sediments underneath the cylinder; (2) the tunneling stage; when a breach is formed between the cylinder and the sediment bed, it expands due to the strong current in the breach; (3) the lee-wake erosion stage; when the gap is large enough, vortices are shed in the wake of the cylinder, leading to erosion downstream of the scour hole [1]. Mao (1986) [2] performed extensive experiments for which the shape of the sediment bed around the cylinder was recorded for various flow conditions. The data collected by Mao (1986) [2] have been widely used as a benchmark for sediment transport models applied to the scour phenomenon.

The numerical simulation of scour under a pipeline has been extensively investigated during the last few decades. The first numerical simulations were based on single-phase models and differed mainly by the way turbulence was modeled. Models based on potential flow theory like Chiew (1991) [3] or Li and Cheng (1999) [4] tend to predict correctly the final shape of the upstream part of the scour hole and its maximum depth. However, they fail to reproduce the downstream part because, according to Sumer (2002) [1], the erosion in this region is dominated by the wake of the cylinder and vortex shedding in the sediment bed. Other single-phase flow models using *k* − *ε* turbulence models like Leeuwenstein and Wind (1984) [5] were used to determine the shape of the scour hole, but also failed

to reproduce the equilibrium stage. Indeed, in early numerical models, the role played by the suspended sediment was underestimated, and only the bed load transport component of sediment transport was taken into account. Clear water cases were better predicted than live-bed cases because suspension plays a more important role in live-bed conditions. Liang et al. (2004) [6] presented a numerical model able to simulate the time development of the scour hole in live-bed and clear-water conditions. The authors' model took into account bed load and suspended load transport, and a *k* − *ε* turbulence model was used. Furthermore, the influence of the local bed slope on the critical shear stress was incorporated. This means that the threshold Shields parameter *θc* was adjusted to a higher value for sediments moving up slope and to lower value for sediments moving down slope. The mathematical model presented by Liang et al. (2004) [6] showed fairly good agreemen<sup>t</sup> with the experimental data from Mao (1986) [2], but the accumulation of sediment behind the pipeline was over-predicted for both live-bed and clear-water scour cases. Liang et al. (2004) [6] argued that this over-prediction was caused by the choice of the *k* − *ε* turbulence model. Indeed, the *k* − *ε* model tends to smooth out the fluctuations in the wake of the pipeline, and therefore, the interaction with the sediment bed can be altered.

The mutual interactions between the fluid and the sediments are more complex than a simple local shear stress relation, as is classically assumed in single-phase flow models. During the past two decades, a new modeling approach has emerged, two-phase flow models [7–9]. One of the main advantages over classical models is that the two-phase flow approach does not require the use of the empirical sediment transport rate and erosion-deposition formulas. The physical grounds on which this new generation of sediment transport models is based should allow improving scour modeling. The two-phase flow approach has already been applied to the scour below a submarine pipeline configuration. Zhao and Fernando (2007) [10] used a two-phase model implemented in the CFD software FLUENT with a *k* − *ε* turbulence model. The temporal evolution of the maximum scour hole was captured in clear-water conditions, but they found that sediments were still in motion in the "fixed" sediment bed layer. It was the first time that a two-phase flow model was applied to the case of scour under a pipeline. At the time, their results were encouraging given the complexity of the phenomenon.

Bakhtiary et al. (2011) [11] also simulated scour under a pipeline in clear-water conditions with a *k* − *ε* turbulence model. The tunneling stage of scour was correctly reproduced, and the shape of the sediment bed corresponded to the experimental data from Mao (1986) [2]. Nevertheless, the upstream part of the scour hole seemed to be better predicted than the downstream part.

More recently, Lee et al. (2016) [12] used a two-phase flow model with a *k* − *ε* turbulence model and the *μ*(*I*) rheology for the granular phase [13]. The authors performed simulations of scour under a pipeline in live-bed conditions. The undisturbed Shields number was higher than in the previous simulations, and no comparison can be made between this model and the other models cited previously. Nevertheless, the time evolution of the scour hole corresponded to the experimental data. They found a strong influence of the turbulence model parameters on the final morphology. Two-phase flow models reached the level of performance of the classical models. Lee et al. (2016) [12] also pointed out the limitation of the *k* − *ε* model and the necessity to use a *k* − *ω*-type turbulence model for prediction of the final shape of the scour hole downstream of the pipeline.

The revisited *k* − *ω* turbulence model from Wilcox (2006) [14] adapted for two-phase flow by Nagel (2019) [15] (referred to as *k* − *ω*2006 in this paper) can reproduce vortex-shedding phenomenon (see Appendix A). It should therefore be able to simulate the lee-wake erosion stage.

In Section 2, the two-phase flow model is presented. The numerical setup is detailed in Section 2.4, and the results are presented and discussed in Section 3.
