Delft3D

Delft3D was developed by Deltares, a Dutch independent research institute. Delft3D is a 3D modeling suite developed to investigate hydrodynamics, sediment transport and morphology, and water quality for fluvial, estuarine and coastal environments. As of January 1, 2011, the Delft3D flow (FLOW), morphology (MOR) and waves (WAVE) modules are available as open source.

The FLOW module is the heart of Delft3D and is a multi-dimensional (2D or 3D) hydrodynamic (and transport) simulation program which calculates non-steady flow and transport phenomena resulting from tidal and meteorological forcing on a curvilinear, boundary fitted grid or spherical coordinates. In 3D simulations, the vertical grid is defined following the so-called sigma coordinate approach or Z-layer approach. The MOR module computes sediment transport (both suspended and bed total load) and morphological changes for an arbitrary number of cohesive and non-cohesive fractions. Both currents and waves act as driving forces and a wide variety of transport formulae have been incorporated. For the suspended load this module connects to the 2D or 3D advection-diffusion solver of the FLOW module; density effects may be taken into account. An essential feature of the MOR module is the dynamic feedback with the FLOW and WAVE modules, which allow the flows and waves to adjust themselves to the local bathymetry and allows for simulations on any time scale from days (storm impact) to centuries (system dynamics). It can keep track of the bed composition to build up a stratigraphic record. The MOR module may be extended to include extensive features to simulate dredging and dumping scenarios.

The components of Delft3D can be downloaded here. (This text modified from the “About” section of the Delft3D website)