Effect of Sand Movement on a Cohesive Substrate

Flume experiments investigated the effect of mobile sand on the erosion of cohesive beds. The fluid-induced stress alone was not enough to cause erosion, and sand motion as bed load was needed. Erosion rates and suspended sediment concentration were found to increase with increasing sand transport and to decrease with increasing median grain size. The erosion rate was found to be at a maximum during saltation, intermediate during creep, and lowest during suspension.     

Sand Transport in Nile River, Egypt

Measurements of bed-load and suspended-load transport rates were carried out successfully at four cross sections of the Nile River, in Egypt, along the entire length from Aswan to Cairo using a mechanical sampler called the Delft Nile Sampler. The measured transport rates were compared to similar data sets from two other large scale rivers: the Rhine-Waal River in the Netherlands and the Mississippi River in the USA. The bed-load transport rates in the Nile River and in the Rhine-Waal River are in very good agreement. Comparison of suspended transport rates in the Nile River and in the Mississippi River shows that both data sets are complementary, revealing a very consistent trend of suspended transport against current velocity; suspended transport is roughly proportional to (Vav)3?to?4. Three formulas for the prediction of bed-load transport were tested using the Nile data: Meyer-Peter–Muller, Bagnold, and Van Rijn. The prediction formula of Van Rijn produced significantly better results than the other two formulas; the average relative error was about 60%. The formula of Van Rijn was modified to extend it to conditions with slightly nonuniform sediment mixtures by introducing a correction factor for the bed shear parameter. Based on a limited number of flume experiments, the correction factor was found to be dependent on the characteristics of the sediment mixture (d10, d50, d90, and σg). Comparison of bed-load transport measured in the Nile River with computed transport rates of the modified formula showed improved results; the average relative error decreased to about 30%. The formulas of Bagnold and Van Rijn were also used to compute the suspended transport rates in the Nile River. The computed transport rates were found to be within a factor of 2 of measured values; the formula of Bagnold performed slightly better. The total load transport formula of Engelund–Hansen was also successfully used (computed values within a factor of about 2 of measured values).     

Erosion of Cohesive Sediments: Resuspension, Bed Load, and Erosion Patterns from Field Experiments

New field data on cohesive sediment erosion is presented and discussed, with particular focus on partitioning the total erosion into resuspension and bed load. The data were obtained using a recently developed in situ flume of the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research, New Zealand. The erosion rate is estimated from direct measurements of bed surface elevations by acoustic sensors, whereas resuspension rate is obtained using data on sediment concentrations measured by optical backscatter sensors. The bed- load contribution to the total erosion rate is evaluated from the conservation equation for sediments. To test repeatability, the data from the in situ flume are compared with those from a previous version of the flume. The results show that comparative studies of in situ flumes and standardized deployment procedures enable direct comparison of experimental data on cohesive sediment erosion. Overall, the data show that a commonly used assumption that the erosion rate is equal to the resuspension rate is not always valid as bed load plays a significant role in cohesive sediment erosion. The data also highlight the importance of clay content and other sediment physical characteristics in the sediment mixture.     

Approach to Separate Sand from Gravel for Bed-Load Transport Calculations in Streams with Bimodal Sediment

The bed material found in gravel-bed streams is nonuniform in terms of grain size and can typically be classified as unimodal or bimodal. The latter type of sediment distribution is usually represented by two modes, one of sand size and another of gravel. For this case, the movement of one mode becomes nonlinearly influenced by the other. As a result, the presence of the two modes in a bimodal material complicates the calculation of bed-load transport rates. The present study proposes an approach to separate the calculation of bed-load transport rates for bimodal materials into two independent fractions of sand and gravel, thereby rendering the bed sediment into two unimodal components. This approach is accomplished by decoupling the two fractions through scaling the reference Shields stresses of the sand and gravel modes to match the value of the mode of unimodal materials. Consequently, the contribution of each fraction to bed load can be estimated using a suitable relation derived for unimodal materials. Laboratory and field bed-load data available in the literature are used to examine the validity of the overall approach.     

Erosion of the Upper Layer of Cohesive Sediments: Characterization of Some Properties

A recent companion paper reported an experimental protocol used to analyze sediment properties. This protocol identified for both freshwater and marine sediments a surface layer with specific dynamic properties (critical erosion shear stresses in the range 0.025–0.05?N?m?2) and a second layer with critical erosion shear stresses about ten times larger. The present study compares these former results with recent work which extended the applicability domain of the Shields diagram to very fine particles. The surface layer is shown to consist in fine and unconsolidated sediments that behave like noncohesive material whereas the second layer is characterized as being cohesive. The surface layer is mainly representative of recent deposits of suspended particles. This points out the existence of a fluffy layer of fine sized particles resting near the bed, with specific erosion characteristics, which has to be considered separately when studying sediment properties.     

Evaluation of a Minimum Base Resistance for Driven Pipe Piles in Siliceous Sand

This paper provides a rational method for evaluating a realistic lower bound for the base resistance of pipe piles in siliceous sand. Separate expressions are developed to represent the response to load of the pile plug, the sand below the pile base, and the sand below the pile annulus. These expressions are combined to give the overall base response of a pipe pile. Predicted responses are compared with databases compiled on the ultimate capacities of pipe piles and with base pressure-displacement characteristics observed in static load tests. The estimations are shown to match observed base resistances of large diameter piles for which the coring mode of penetration during driving dominates.     

Effect of Sand Supply on Transport Rates in a Gravel-Bed Channel

In a series of flume experiments using constant discharge, flow depth, and gravel feed rate, sand feed rates were varied from 0.16 to 6.1 times that of gravel. The bed slope decreased with increasing sand supply, indicating that the gravel could be transported at the same rate, along with increasing amounts of sand, at smaller shear stresses. Prediction of river response to an increase in sediment supply requires prediction of mutual changes in bed composition and transport, and therefore a transport model defined in terms of the grain size of the bed surface. A recent model provides satisfactory prediction of the experimental observations and indicates the general response of gravel beds to increased sand supply. An increase in sand supply may increase the sand content of the river bed and the mobility of gravel fractions, which can lead to bed degradation and preferential evacuation of these sediments from the river.     

Efficient Treatment of the Vardy–Brown Unsteady Shear in Pipe Transients

An accurate, simple, and efficient approximation to the Vardy–Brown unsteady friction equation is derived and shown to be easily implemented within a one-dimensional characteristics solution for unsteady pipe flow. For comparison, the exact Vardy–Brown unsteady friction equation is used to model shear stresses in transient turbulent pipe flows and the resulting waterhammer equations are solved by the method of characteristics. The approximate Vardy–Brown model is more computationally efficient (i.e., requires one-sixth the execution time and much less memory storage) than the exact Vardy–Brown model. Both models are compared with measured data from different research groups and with numerical data produced by a two-dimensional turbulence waterhammer model. The results show that the exact Vardy–Brown model and the approximate Vardy–Brown model are in good agreement with both laboratory and numerical experiments over a wide range of Reynolds number and wave frequencies. The proposed approximate model only requires the storage of flow variables from a single time step while the exact Vardy–Brown model requires the storage of flow variables at all previous time steps and the two-dimensional model requires the storage of flow variables at all radial nodes.     

Unified View of Sediment Transport by Currents and Waves. I: Initiation of Motion, Bed Roughness, and Bed-Load Transport

Attention is given to the properties of sediment beds over the full range of conditions (silts to gravel), in particular the effect of fine silt on the bed composition and on initiation of motion (critical conditions) is discussed. High-quality bed-load transport data sets are identified and analyzed, showing that the bed-load transport in the sand range is related to velocity to power 2.5. The bed-load transport is not much affected by particle size. The prediction of bed roughness is addressed and the prediction of bed-load transport in steady river flow is extended to coastal flow applying an intrawave approach. Simplified bed-load transport formulas are presented, which can be used to obtain a quick estimate of bed-load transport in river and coastal flows. It is shown that the sediment transport of fine silts to coarse sand can be described in a unified model framework using fairly simple expressions. The proposed model is fully predictive in the sense that only the basic hydrodynamic parameters (depth, current velocity, wave height, wave period, etc.) and the basic sediment characteristics (d10, d50, d90, water temperature, and salinity) need to be known. The prediction of the effective bed roughness is an integral part of the model.     

Measurements of Sediment Erosion and Transport with the Adjustable Shear Stress Erosion and Transport Flume

Soil and sediments play an important role in water management and water quality. Issues such as water turbidity, associated contaminants, reservoir sedimentation, undesirable erosion and scour, and aquatic habitat are all linked to sediment properties and behaviors. In situ analysis is necessary to develop an understanding of the erosion and transport of sediments. Sandia National Laboratories has recently patented the Adjustable Shear Stress Erosion and Transport (ASSET) Flume that quantifies in situ erosion of a sediment core with depth while affording simultaneous examination of transport modes (bedload versus suspended load) of the eroded material. Core erosion rates and ratios of bedload to suspended load transport of quartz sediments were studied with the ASSET Flume. The erosion and transport of a fine-grained natural cohesive sediment were also observed. Experiments using quartz sands revealed that the ratio of suspended load to bedload sediment transport is a function of grain diameter and shear stress at the sediment surface. Data collected from the ASSET Flume were used to formulate a novel empirical relation for predicting the ratio of bedload to suspended load as a function of shear stress and grain diameter for noncohesive sediments.     

Dilatancy and Shear Strength of Sand at Low Confining Pressures

Sand dilates with shearing at a rate that increases with increasing relative density (DR) and decreases with increasing effective confining stress (σc′). The peak friction angle of a sand depends on its critical-state friction angle and on dilatancy. In this paper, we develop a simple correlation between peak friction angle, critical-state friction angle, and dilatancy based on triaxial compression and plane-strain compression test data for sand for a range of confining pressures from very low levels to approximately 196 kPa.     

Hydraulics of Submerged Jet Subject to Change in Cohesive Bed Geometry

The results of an experimental investigation of the time variation of scour hole and the flow characteristics of the quasi-equilibrium state of scour of a cohesive bed downstream of an apron due to a submerged horizontal jet issuing from a sluice opening are presented. Experiments were carried out with natural cohesive sediment for various sluice openings, jet velocities, and lengths of apron. Attempts are made to explain the similarity existing either in the process of scour or in the scour profiles that the scour holes follow downstream of an apron. The scour profiles at different times follow a particular geometrical similarity and can be expressed by a polynomial using relevant parameters. The characteristic parameters affecting the time variation of scour depth are identified based on the physical reasoning and dimensional analysis. An equation for time variation of maximum scour depth is obtained empirically. The diffusion characteristics of the submerged jet, growth of boundary layer thickness, velocity distribution within the boundary layer, and shear stress at the quasi-equilibrium state of scour are also investigated. The expression of shear stress is obtained from the solution of the von Kármán momentum integral equation.     

Transport and Deposition of Suspended Soil Colloids in Saturated Sand Columns

Understanding colloid mobilization, transport, and deposition in the subsurface is a prerequisite for predicting colloid-facilitated transport of strongly adsorbing contaminants and further developing remedial activities. This study investigated the transport behavior of soil-colloids extracted from a red-yellow soil from Okinawa, Japan. Different concentrations of suspended-soil colloids (with diameter <1??μm) were applied, at different flow velocities and pH conditions, to 10-cm long water-saturated columns repacked with either Narita (mean diameter D50 = 0.64??mm) or Toyoura (mean diameter D50 = 0.21??mm) sands. The transport and retention of colloids were studied by analyzing colloid effluent breakthrough curves (BTCs), particle size distribution in the effluent, and colloid deposition profiles within the column. The results showed a significant influence of flow velocity: Low flow velocity caused tailing of colloid BTCs with higher reversible entrapment and release of colloids than high flow velocity. The finer Toyoura sand retained more colloids than the coarser Narita sand at low pH conditions. The deposition profile and particle size distribution of colloids in the Toyoura sand clearly indicated a depth-dependent straining mechanism. By fitting colloid transport models (one-site and two-site models) to the colloid effluent breakthrough curves, transport and deposition of colloids in Narita sand at low pH were best described by a one-site attachment-detachment model, whereas colloid transport and deposition in Toyoura sand at low pH were better captured by a two-site attachment, detachment, and straining model. The coupled effects of solution chemistry, colloid sizes, and medium surface properties have a dominating role in particle-particle and particle-collector interactions in colloid transport and deposition.     

Simulating Bed-Load Transport in a Complex Gravel-Bed River

An existing two-dimensional mobile-bed hydrodynamic model has been modified to simulate bed-load transport in a complex gravel-bed river. We investigated the sensitivity of predicted bed load to control parameters, and compared model predictions of flow depth, shear stress, and gravel transport with field measurements made from the river. The predictions are based on concurrent field data of flow discharge, water level, and sediment for model input. The model takes into account multiple-fraction transport rates, and continuously updates the river bed and surface grain-size distribution. The model predictions are in reasonable agreement with field measurements.     

Investigating the Role of Clasts on the Movement of Sand in Gravel Bed Rivers

The bed morphology of mountain rivers is characterized primarily by the presence of distinguishable isolated roughness elements, such boulders or clasts. The objective of this experimental study was to provide a unique insight into the role of an array of clasts in regulating sand movement over gravel beds for low relative submergence conditions, H/dc<1, and flow depth, H, to the diameter of the clast, dc, a process that has not been studied thoroughly. To assess the role of clasts in controlling incoming sand movement, detailed flume experiments were conducted by placing 40 equally spaced clasts atop a well-packed glass bead bed for replicating the isolated roughness flow regime. The experiments were performed for moderate ( ～ 2.50τcr* where τcr* is the critical dimensionless bed shear stress) and high ( ～ 5.50τcr*) applied bed shear stress conditions, representative of gravel bed rivers. For comparison purposes, experiments were also repeated for nearly identical flow conditions but without the presence of clasts to discern the potential effects that clasts may have on sediment movement and hydraulics within the clast array region and also in the upstream section of the clast region where few observations exist. The experimental results revealed the formation of two distinguishable bed morphological features, namely a funnel shaped “sand ridge” upstream from the clast array region and small depositional “sand patches” around individual clasts. The sand patches were formed in the stoss region of the clasts, which contradicted previous observations of depositional patterns around clasts under high relative submergence conditions (H/dc>1) where, in this case, depositional patches were observed to have formed in the clast wake region. Furthermore, most of the incoming sand was found to be intercepted by the evolving sand ridge upstream from the clast array region with implications in the amount of sand entering the clast array region. The exiting bed-load rate was found to be reduced by a factor of ～ 5.0–20, depending on the prevailing flow conditions when experiments with and without clasts were compared under nearly identical flow conditions. The findings of this research, although limited to the isolated roughness regime, may have significant ramifications in stream restoration projects for the design of engineered riffle sections, which typically consist of an array of clasts installed to improve degraded waterways and aquatic habitat.     

Impact of Salinity on MS-2 Sorption in Saturated Sand Columns—Fate and Transport Modeling

This research investigated the sorption and transport of MS-2 in saturated sand under a wide range of salinities using one-dimensional column experiments. The salinity varied from 0 ppt (fresh water) to 30 ppt. The MS-2 in the fresh water showed very weak adsorption due to having the same negative charge as the sand. Increasing the salinity concentrations dramatically enhanced MS-2 adsorption. The MS-2 breakthrough revealed the existence of reversible and irreversible sorption sites in the sand. Salinity increased MS-2 attachment by compressing the double layers of MS-2 and reversible sorption sites. The salinity also changed some reversible sorption sites into irreversible sorption sites by reversing to positive surface charges of silica powder. An advection-dispersion-sorption model with a two-site reversible-irreversible kinetic sorption was developed to describe MS-2 breakthrough under different salinity conditions. The sorption parameters were estimated and their independence was evaluated by minimizing the total squared error of the MS-2 data. The proposed model showed good agreement with the experimental data for a wide range of salinity levels from fresh water to near seawater. The strong sorption shown in the MS-2 breakthrough at high salinity levels above 8 ppt was able to distinguish the proposed model from other sorption models. This study promotes the understanding of the viral sorption with salinity and provides a useful model for coastal management of viral migration in saline coastal groundwater.     

Experimental and Numerical Study of Uplift Behavior of Shallow Circular Anchor in Two-Layered Sand

In this study, the behavior and scale effect of shallow circular anchors in two-layered sand is evaluated by comparing the results of a conventional 1?g model test with the results of finite-element analysis. The finite-element analysis is performed using an elastoplastic model in which progressive failure with shear band effect is introduced into the constitutive equation. The model is able to successfully predict the anchor behavior in two-layered sand. The direction of shear band propagation, within a sand layer, was observed to be a function of the density alone, regardless of the position of the layer. When the thickness of the lower layer was increased, maximum uplift resistance was found to increase with increasing thickness of a dense layer above a medium bed, and to decrease with increasing thickness of a medium layer above a dense bed. The scale effect was remarkable in the lower layer of dense sand.     

Stochastic Prediction of Sediment Transport in Sand-Gravel Bed Rivers

Classical deterministic bedload transport predictors are applied to sand-gravel bed rivers. The turbulent bed shear stress is modeled according to a probability distribution to obtain realistic bedload transport rates at incipient motion. In extending the predictors to stochastic predictors for nonuniform sediment, many parameters that represent near-bed turbulence and the particle size distribution must be chosen. The parameters that give realistic results are chosen by analyzing the results of a new experimental flume dataset with relatively large water depths. Choosing other combinations of parameters may give equal total bedload transport rates, but at the cost of large errors in fractional transport rates. Attention is given to the hiding-exposure phenomenon and a hindrance effect related to nonuniform sediment. Validation based on two independent field datasets shows that successful predictions of particle sizes near the threshold for motion are feasible using the stochastic approach, while the deterministic approach gives successful predictions well above incipient motion.     

Performance of Bed-Load Transport Equations Relative to Geomorphic Significance: Predicting Effective Discharge and Its Transport Rate

Previous studies assessing the accuracy of bed-load transport equations have considered equation performance statistically based on paired observations of measured and predicted bed-load transport rates. However, transport measurements were typically taken during low flows, biasing the assessment of equation performance toward low discharges, and because equation performance can vary with discharge, it is unclear whether previous assessments of performance apply to higher, geomorphically significant flows (e.g., the bankfull or effective discharges). Nor is it clear whether these equations can predict the effective discharge, which depends on the accuracy of the bed-load transport equation across a range of flows. Prediction of the effective discharge is particularly important in stream restoration projects, as it is frequently used as an index value for scaling channel dimensions and for designing dynamically stable channels. In this study, we consider the geomorphic performance of five bed-load transport equations at 22 gravel-bed rivers in mountain basins of the western United States. Performance is assessed in terms of the accuracy with which the equations are able to predict the effective discharge and its bed-load transport rate. We find that the median error in predicting effective discharge is near zero for all equations, indicating that effective discharge predictions may not be particularly sensitive to one’s choice of bed-load transport equation. However, the standard deviation of the prediction error differs between equations (ranging from 10% to 60%), as does their ability to predict the transport rate at the effective discharge (median errors of less than 1 to almost 2.5 orders of magnitude). A framework is presented for standardizing the transport equations to explain observed differences in performance and to explore sensitivity of effective discharge predictions.