Simulated Flow Velocity Structure in Meandering Channels: Stratification and Inertia Effects Caused by Suspended Sediment
1
State Key Laboratory of Hydroscience and Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
2
Department of Civil and Structural Engineering, University of Sheffield, Sheffield S1 3JD, UK
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Water 2019, 11(6), 1254; https://doi.org/10.3390/w11061254
Received: 28 April 2019 / Revised: 9 June 2019 / Accepted: 11 June 2019 / Published: 15 June 2019
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Modelling and Prediction on the Impact of Human Activities and Extreme Events in River and Coastal Environments)
In this study, the coupled effects of sediment inertia and stratification on the pattern of secondary currents in bend-flows are evaluated using a 3D numerical model. The sediment inertia effect, as well as the stratification effect induced by the non-uniform distribution of suspended sediment, is accounted for by adopting the hydrodynamic equations without the Boussinesq approximation. The 3D model is validated by existing laboratory experimental results. Simulation results of a simplified meandering channel indicate that sediment stratification effect enhances the intensity of secondary flow via reducing eddy viscosity, while sediment inertia effect suppresses it. The integrated effects result in an increase and a reduction in the secondary flow, respectively, at lower and higher concentrations (near-bed volumetric concentrations of 0.015 and 0.1 are, respectively, considered in this study). This suggests that the dominance of the suspended sediment effect depends on the sediment concentration profile. With the increase of concentration under a specific sediment size, the secondary flow rises to reach a maximum, and then decreases. Moreover, as the sediment concentration increases, an exponentially decaying rate has been found for the secondary flow. It is concluded that in the numerical simulation of flow in meandering channels, when concentration is high, the variable-density hydrodynamic equations without the Boussinesq approximation should be considered.
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MDPI and ACS Style
Yang, F.; Shao, X.; Fu, X.; Kazemi, E. Simulated Flow Velocity Structure in Meandering Channels: Stratification and Inertia Effects Caused by Suspended Sediment. Water 2019, 11, 1254.
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