Turbulence of flow over mobile bedforms in natural open channels is not yet clearly understood. An attempt is made in this paper to determine the effect of naturally formed mobile bedforms on velocities, turbulent intensities and turbulent stresses. Instantaneous velocities are measured using a two-dimensional particle image velocimetry (PIV) to evaluate the turbulence structure of free surface flow over a fixed (immobile) bed, a weakly mobile bed and a temporally varying mobile bed with different stages of bedform development. This paper documents the vertical distribution of velocity, turbulence intensities, Reynolds shear stress and higher-order moments including skewness and turbulent diffusion factors. Analysis of the velocity distributions shows a substantial decrease of velocity near the bed with increasing bedform mobility due to increased friction. A modified logarithmic law with a reduced von Kármán constant and increased velocity shift is proposed for the case of the mobile bedforms. A significant increase in the Reynolds shear stress is observed in the mobile bedforms experiments accompanied by changes over the entire flow depth compared to an immobile bed. The skewness factor distribution was found to be different in the case of the flow over the mobile bedforms. All higher-order turbulence descriptors are found to be significantly affected by the formation of temporally varying and non-equilibrium mobile bedforms. Quadrant analysis indicates that sweep and outward events are found to be dominant in strongly mobile bedforms and govern the bedform mobility.
The study presents experimental investigations of spatial turbulence intensity and scales of turbulent eddies (macroeddies) in a rectangular channel and the impact of the hydraulic jump on their vertical and streamwise distributions over a flat and scoured bed. The results of four tests and two different discharge rates are presented. Intensive mixing caused by the hydraulic jump has an impact on the instantaneous velocity, turbulence intensity and sizes of macroeddies, as well as their vertical and longitudinal distributions along the channel. The largest differences in turbulence characteristics were reported directly after the hydraulic jump, above the eroded bed. The interaction between the stream of the increased turbulence and the bed is a direct cause of formation of scour downstream water structures, which has a great effect on overall flow characteristics. The scour hole that arose downstream the jump moderated, in a small degree, the turbulence intensity at its end. Just next to the hydraulic jump only the small longitudinal relative sizes of macroeddies were present, while at the end of the analyzed reach, downstream of the scour, the relative scale reached around 1.5 depth of the stream.
This study examines the problem of flow resistance due to rigid vegetation in open channel flow. The reliability of the conventional flow resistance equations (i.e. Keulegan, Manning and Chézy-Bazin) for vegetated flows at high submergence, i.e. h/k >5, (where h = flow depth and k = vegetation height) is assessed. Several modern flow resistance equations based on a two-layer approach are examined, showing that they transform into the conventional equations at high submergences. To compare the conventional flow resistance equations at high submergences, an experimental methodology is proposed and applied to the experimental data reported in the literature and collected for this study. The results demonstrate the reliability of the Keulegan equation in predicting the flow resistance. Based on the obtained results, a model to evaluate the Nikuradse equivalent sand-grain roughness, kN, starting from the vegetation height and density, is proposed and tested.