scholarly journals The effect of coarse gravel on cohesive sediment entrapment in an annular flume

Author(s):  
K. Glasbergen ◽  
M. Stone ◽  
B. Krishnappan ◽  
J. Dixon ◽  
U. Silins

Abstract. While cohesive sediment generally represents a small fraction (<0.5%) of the total sediment mass stored in gravel-bed rivers, it can strongly influence physical and biogeochemical processes in the hyporheic zone and alter aquatic habitat. This research was conducted to examine mechanisms governing the interaction of cohesive sediments with gravel beds in the Elbow River, Alberta, Canada. A series of erosion and deposition experiments with and without a gravel bed were conducted in a 5-m diameter annular flume. The critical shear stress for deposition and erosion of cohesive sediment without gravel was 0.115 Pa and 0.212 Pa, respectively. In experiments with a gravel bed, cohesive sediment moved from the water column into the gravel bed via the coupling of surface and pore water flow. Once in the gravel bed, cohesive sediments were not mobilized under the maximum applied shear stresses (1.11 Pa) used in the experiment. The gravel bed had an entrapment coefficient (ratio between the entrapment flux and the settling flux) of 0.2. Accordingly, when flow conditions are sufficient to produce a shear stress that will mobilize the armour layer of the gravel bed (>16 Pa), cohesive materials trapped within the gravel bed will be entrained and transported into the Glenmore Reservoir, where sediment-associated nutrients may pose treatment challenges to the drinking water supply.

2003 ◽  
Vol 34 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 125-138 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Milburn ◽  
B.G. Krishnappan

A large volume sample of river-bed cohesive sediment and water from Hay River, Northwest Territories, Canada was collected during a spring field program in 2000 as part of a study on under-ice movement of sediment just before breakup. Controlled laboratory experiments were subsequently conducted on the Hay River water/sediments in a rotating annular flume at Burlington, Ontario, Canada to better understand the deposition and erosion processes of cohesive sediment transport. The deposition experiments in the rotating flume confirmed that the Hay River sediment is cohesive and the critical shear stress for deposition and the rates of deposition are a function of bed shear stress and the initial concentration of the sediment in suspension. The erosion experiments provided quantitative data on the critical shear stress for erosion and the rates of erosion as a function of bed shear stress and the age of the sediment deposit. The erosion experiments also indicated that the growth of the biofilm had an influence on the erosion characteristics of the Hay River sediment. Based on the data from the rotating circular flume experiments, a modelling strategy is proposed for calculating the under-ice transport of the cohesive sediments in the Hay River.


2007 ◽  
Vol 44 (4) ◽  
pp. 473-489 ◽  
Author(s):  
M Haneef-Mian ◽  
Ernest K Yanful ◽  
Robert Martinuzzi

The present study gives details of a methodology for estimating the critical shear stress for erosion of mine tailings and other naturally occurring cohesive sediments. Erosion of a cohesive sediments bed occurs when the critical shear stress is exceeded to break the interparticle bond. Experiments were conducted in a 30 cm diameter laboratory column and calibrated using laser Doppler anemometry. The results showed that the erosion pattern of mine tailings particles was similar to those of fine-grained cohesive sediments. A power-law relation of the form E = α[(τ – τcr)/τcr]n is suggested for mine tailings, where E is the erosion rate, α is a coefficient, τ is the shear stress, τcr is the critical shear stress, and n is an exponent. The computed values of α, n, and τcr in the power-law equation were found to be comparable to values derived from experiments in a rotating circular flume. The derived expression for rate of erosion may be incorporated in resuspension and transport models for fine mine tailings of a similar nature.Key words: mine tailings, laser Doppler velocimetry, wall shear stresses, critical shear stress for erosion, erosion – shear stress relationship.


2014 ◽  
Vol 2014 (1) ◽  
pp. 300241
Author(s):  
Charles Watkins ◽  
Olivia Jobin ◽  
Nancy Kinner ◽  
Thomas Ballestero ◽  
Neil W. Thomas ◽  
...  

As observed in several recent cases (e.g., DBL-152, Enbridge-Kalamazoo), under certain circumstances, spilled oil can sink to the bottom of a water body. Once on the bottom, the oil can move or even remobilize into the water column. The critical shear stress (CSS) is used to accurately predict the movement of sunken oil along and off the bottom. Unfortunately, shear stress has only been measured for one sunken oil (Hibernian Crude API = 34). The Coastal Response Research Center (CRRC) at the University of New Hampshire (UNH) has an annular flume equipped with high-definition cameras and an acoustic velocimeter that can be used to estimate CSS by measuring the instantaneous, three-dimensional water current velocities at which sunken oils move and erode as visible oil droplets. The results reported are for an Alberta bitumen, tested at temperatures between 5° and 28°C in freshwater.


Water ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (5) ◽  
pp. 1511
Author(s):  
Bommanna Gounder Krishnappan ◽  
Mike Stone ◽  
Steven Granger ◽  
Hari Upadhayay ◽  
Qiang Tang ◽  
...  

In this short communication, the erosion process of the fine, cohesive sediment collected from the upper River Taw in South West England was studied in a rotating annular flume located in the National Water Research Institute in Burlington, Ontario, Canada. This study is part of a research project that is underway to model the transport of fine sediment and the associated nutrients in that river system. The erosion experimental data show that the critical shear stress for erosion of the upper River Taw sediment is about 0.09 Pa and it did not depend on the age of sediment deposit. The eroded sediment was transported in a flocculated form and the agent of flocculation for the upper River Taw sediment may be due to the presence of fibrils from microorganisms and organic material in the system. The experimental data were analysed using a curve fitting approach of Krone and a mathematical model of cohesive sediment transport in rotating circular flumes developed by Krishnappan. The modelled and measured data were in good agreement. An evaluation of the physical significance of Krone’s fitting coefficients is presented. Variability of the fitting coefficients as a function of bed shear stress and age of sediment deposit indicate the key role these two factors play in the erosion process of fluvial cohesive sediment.


2001 ◽  
Vol 38 (4) ◽  
pp. 796-808 ◽  
Author(s):  
Celestina Adu-Wusu ◽  
Ernest K Yanful ◽  
Mohammed H Mian

Flooding of tailings under shallow water covers is an effective method of decommissioning potentially acid generating mine tailings. The low diffusivity and solubility of oxygen in water are attractive features of this technology. However, wind-induced waves can resuspend flooded tailings and expose them to greater contact with dissolved oxygen, thereby increasing the potential for oxidation and acid generation. Field measurements of wind activity and waves under different water cover depths and associated resuspension for a mine tailings pond in Ontario are presented and discussed. The results show that wind speeds greater than 8 m/s above water covers that are shallower than 1 m create waves of height greater than 10 cm and bottom shear stresses greater than 0.2 Pa. Under these conditions the critical shear stress of the mine tailings was exceeded, resulting in erosion and subsequent resuspension.Key words: mine tailings, water cover, wind-induced waves, resuspension, wind speed, shear stress.


Author(s):  
Phani Ganesh Elapolu ◽  
Pradip Majumdar ◽  
Steven A. Lottes ◽  
Milivoje Kostic

One of the major concerns affecting the safety of bridges with foundation supports in river-beds is the scouring of river-bed material from bridge supports during floods. Scour is the engineering term for the erosion caused by water around bridge elements such as piers, monopiles, or abutments. Scour holes around a monopile can jeopardize the stability of the whole structure and will require deeper piling or local armoring of the river-bed. About 500,000 bridges in the National Bridge Registry are over waterways. Many of these are considered as vulnerable to scour, about five percent are classified as scour critical, and over the last 30 years bridge failures caused by foundation scour have averaged about one every two weeks. Therefore it is of great importance to predict the correct scour development for a given bridge and flood conditions. Apart from saving time and money, integrity of bridges are important in ensuring public safety. Recent advances in computing boundary motion in combination with mesh morphing to maintain mesh quality in computational fluid dynamic analysis can be applied to predict the scour hole development, analyze the local scour phenomenon, and predict the scour hole shape and size around a pier. The main objective of the present study was to develop and implement a three dimensional iterative procedure to predict the scour hole formation around a cylindrical pier using the mesh morphing capabilities in the STARCCM+ commercial CFD code. A computational methodology has been developed using Python and Java Macros and implemented using a Bash script on a LINUX high performance computer cluster. An implicit unsteady approach was used to obtain the bed shear stresses. The mesh was iteratively deformed towards the equilibrium scour position based on the excess shear stress above the critical shear stress (supercritical shear stress). The model solves the flow field using Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) equations, and the standard k–ε turbulence model. The iterative process involves stretching (morphing) a meshed domain after every time step, away from the bottom where scouring flow parameters are supercritical, and remeshing the relevant computational domain after a certain number of time steps when the morphed mesh compromises the stability of further simulation. The simulation model was validated by comparing results with limited experimental data available in the literature.


2006 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 300-305 ◽  
Author(s):  
WY CHAN ◽  
Onyx WH WAI ◽  
YS LI

1982 ◽  
Vol 14 (4-5) ◽  
pp. 175-184 ◽  
Author(s):  
T Kusuda ◽  
T Umita ◽  
K Koga ◽  
H Yorozu ◽  
Y Awaya

The main purposes of this study were to investigate the depositional properties of the typical fine less-cohesive sediments in Japanese estuaries and bays and to make it possible to estimate the amount of deposition of the sediments. Suspended fine sediment concentration depends strongly on the shear stress and a critical particle diameter exists corresponding to a certain shear stress. The suspended particles larger than the critical diameter settle down proportionally to the concentration of particles. On the other hand, the suspended particles smaller than the critical diameter are held in water without settling. The depositional properties obtained from experiments make it possible to estimate the depositional rate and amount of the sediments. In the laboratory experiments on deposition, an annular flume with a ring and a channel was used.


1983 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 549-554 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. Magalhaes ◽  
T. S. Chau

Critical shear stresses for erosion of alluvial shale particles were investigated in a laboratory flume. Tests in the incipient motion conditions of individual particles showed that entrainment of shale bed particles takes place at mean shear stress values 40–50% smaller than other types of non-cohesive and coarse granular material. The low density and platy shape of the shale particles may induce high lift forces, which would account for a decrease in the resistance to erosion of shale channels and greater rates of bed-load transport. Keywords: channel stability, critical shear stress, flume tests, initiation of motion, shale gravels, single particles, weak bed material movement.


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