Gravel Particles Entrainment and Deposition under Unsteady Flow Conditions

Abstract:

Spatial patterns of particle entrainment and deposition under unsteady flow regime were examined using coloured particles. The impact of three different basic hydrograph shapes (triangular, rising and falling) on the bedload rate of a gravel-bedded channel is experimentally analysed. The experiments were performed in a 16.8 m long glassed-walls tilting flume, with a 60 cm wide and 80 cm deep rectangular section, at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne. A mobile 10 cm deep layer reach was made in the bed channel from x = 4.9 m to x = 14.1 m with a relatively uniform gravel of size 3 to 8 mm. A sediment trap is located immediately downstream the movable bed reach and no sediment feeding were imposed upstream. Eight 0.70 m long stripes of coloured sediments were laid over the natural gravel starting immediately upstream of the sediment trap. The thickness of the coloured gravel layer was about 3 to 4 cm (approximately 5 to 7 times D₅₀). The total length of the reach covered with the coloured sediments was 5.6 m. After the experiments, approximately the top 2 cm of the gravel bed was sampled by strips of 0.175 m in the longitudinal direction, over the entire reach covered with sediments. These samples were then separated into gravels of different colours, and the dry weight of the sediments of each sample was measured. In addition, the gravel accumulated in the sediment trap was also separated into different colour groups, weighed separately. From the combined evaluation of the sediments trapped downstream and the sediments sampled throughout the channel, spatial patterns of entrainment and deposition rates are inferred. With this, back calculation of the depth of the active layer is performed and Wilcok’s formulations on tracer dispersion and estimation of sediment transport is tested and discussed.