Nonlinear Shear Effects of the Secondary Current in the 2D Flow Analysis in Meandering Channels with Sharp Curvature

In order to analyze the shear effect of secondary currents on the flow structures in a meandering channel, this research developed a two-dimensional shallow water model, which included the dispersion stress term accounting for the shear effect in the vertical velocity profile. A new equation for the vertical velocity profile that included nonlinear shear effects was derived from the equation of motion in the meandering channel with sharp curvature. Using the experiment data obtained from large-scale meandering channels, the ratio of the depth over the radius-of-curvature was incorporated into the shear intensity of the secondary flow in the proposed equation. Comparisons with the experimental results by previous research showed that the computed values of the primary velocity distribution by the proposed model showed better fit with the observed data than the simulations with linear models and models without secondary flow consideration. The simulated results in the large-scale meandering channels demonstrated that simulations with the nonlinear secondary flow effect added into modeling gave higher accuracy, reducing the relative error by 19% in reproducing the skewed distributions of the primary flow in meandering channels, particularly in the regions where the effects from spiral motion were strong, due to sharp meanders.