Estimation of hydraulic and geometric parameters of a gravel-bed river such as dimensions of bedforms is very difficult task, although they play a fundamental role in river engineering projects. One of the methods to get essential information regarding the bedform characteristics is to find the relations between the flow parameters and bedform dimensions. We conducted this field study in the Babolroud River in northern Iran to investigate the application of double averaged method in unspecific gravel bedforms to evaluate friction factor. Using data collected from several river reaches with total length of 356 m of a gravel-bed river, the relationship between bedform geometry (height and the length of bedforms) and flow parameters including shear velocity, transport stage parameter with friction factor is investigated.
Different methods for estimating bedforms dimensions are examined to assess the ability of predicting bedform parameters (length and height) in a gravel-bed river. Using bedform parameters, the contribution of particle and form friction is estimated. Results confirm the application of the double averaged method and existing bedform parameters for unspecific bedforms. There exists a similar trend between aspect ratio and friction factor in gravel bedforms.
This paper presents the results of an experimental study to quantify the effects of bed slope and relative submergence on incipient motion of sediment under decelerating flows. Experiments were conducted in an experimental tilting-flume of 8 m long 0.4 m wide and 0.6 m deep with glass-walls. Three uniform sediments with median grain sizes of 0.95, 1.8 and 3.8 mm and three bed slopes of 0.0075, 0.0125 and 0.015 were used under decelerating flow. The main conclusion is that the Shields diagram, which is commonly used to evaluate the critical shear stress, is not suitable to predict the critical shear stress under decelerating flows.
This paper investigates the incipient motion of sediment particles under non-uniform flow in river and laboratory. In rivers, the non-uniform flow is often observed due to the presence of various bed forms. Threshold condition has been examined by using the Shields diagram based on the uniform flow assumption, however, this approach can be led to fallacious results for non-uniform flows where the effect of pressure gradient is significant due to bed forms. This study investigates the chronological order of incipient motion of the particles, the average threshold velocity (Ucr), and Shields parameter for non-uniform flows. River data collection with gravel is used for investigating the incipient motion of surface layer of river bed and the laboratory data collection is considered studying the incipient motion of sub-surface layer of river. Both river and laboratory data collections are conducted in the presence of bed forms. Results reveal that the Shields diagram underestimates the particle incipient motion under accelerating and decelerating flows for the both case of laboratory and river. In both weak and general motion in the laboratory, the values of the critical Shields parameter are located below the Shields diagram, showing no particle motion. Our analysis shows that the incipient motion in river is affected by the presence of bed forms, river width changes, and flow non-uniformity conditions. The results show that in the accelerating flow (the bed form exit with a negative slope), the incipient motion is greater than the decelerating flow (the bed form entrance with a positive slope).
Field observations showed that in many gravel-bed rivers, rice stems and gravel interact with each other and affect the flow structure. This calls to conduct research in more details in laboratory to better understand impacts of interaction between rice stems and gravel bed rivers on the flow structure. The outcome of such investigations can improve the estimation of drag coefficient in hydrodynamic models. Experiments were carried out in a flume with gravel bed and the vegetated vertical flume walls to investigate turbulence characteristics under favorable pressure gradient flows. Results showed that the stress fraction involves both the sweep and ejection dominance near the vegetated flume walls, showing no negative Reynolds shear stress near water surface. The values of exuberance ratio play a significant role on the magnitude of the Reynolds shear stress which varies with the distance from the vegetation. Quadrant analysis reveals that a major part of the momentum flux is transported during a short period of strong turbulence activity near the bed at the central axis. Augmentation of the hole size makes difference between contributions of sweep and ejection with those of the outward and inward interactions near the bed, however, the hole size doesn’t play any role near the water surface.