Two-Phase Flow Modelling Perspectives Based on Novel High-Resolution Acoustic Measurements of Uniform Steady Sheet-Flow

Abstract:

Sheet flow is believed to be a major process for morphological evolution of natural systems. An important research effort has been dedicated to laboratory and numerical studies of sheet flow regime that have allowed to make some progress in the understanding of the underlying physical processes. Recent advances made in high resolution measurement techniques allows to give new insights into the small scale physical processes. In this contribution, a novel uniform and steady sheet flow dataset based on an Acoustic Concentration and Velocity Profiler (ACVP) is presented. Profile of colocated velocities (streamwise and wall-normal) and sediment concentration has been measured at high-resolution (3 mm ; 78 Hz for the velocities and 4.9 Hz for the concentration). The measured profiles extend over the whole water column, from the free surface down to the fixed bed and an ensemble averaging over eleven realisations of the same experimental conditions has been used to obtain mean profiles of streamwise velocity, concentration, sediment flux and turbulent shear stress. The present experiment corresponds to a Shields number of θ=0.44 and a suspension number of w_s/u_*=1.1 corresponding to the lower limit of the no-suspension sheet flow regime. The analysis of the mixing length profile allows to identify two layers, a dilute suspension layer dominated by turbulence and a dense moving bed layer dominated by granular interactions. Our measurements show that the Von Karman parameter is reduced by a factor of more than two and that the Schmidt number is almost constant with a mean value of σ_s=0.44. Frictional and collisional interactions are encountered in the bed layer. Frictional interactions dominate close to the fixed bed interface whereas collisional interactions seems to control the flow at the transition between the dense and dilute layers. The relevancy of different constitutive laws for two-phase flow models are discussed.