Experiments were conducted to assess ways in which an imposed sediment load can affect the formation and final nature of an armoured bed. A flume loaded with a quartz aggregate of known composition was subjected to various sediment-laden flows of water to produce armoured beds. Characteristic parameters of the armoured beds were then compared.In general, it was found that the final armoured bed can be significantly altered by an imposed sediment load. As the size of the input sediment increased, the amount of bed material that was eroded, the resulting particle size of the bed, and the total roughness of the bed all decreased. The formation of bed forms was very important in this process. The trends observed in these experimental tests indicate that the presence or absence of upstream sediment sources has a direct influence on the resulting armoured layer.
Entrainment and transport of coarse stream bed material in a fluviokarst watershed, south-central Missouri: a tracer particle study
