A General Formula for Noncohesive Suspended Sediment Transport

Abstract

A simple and robust suspended load transport formula for noncohesive sediment is presented for application to river, estuarine, and coastal environments with the use of depth-averaged models. The formula is based on an exponential profile for the concentration and assumes a constant velocity over depth to simplify the calculations. These assumptions were validated with a large data set, including data with a steady current, wave and current interaction, and breaking waves. The formula has two parameters: the mean sediment diffusivity over depth and the bottom reference concentration. The sediment diffusivity is estimated assuming a linear combination of mixing because of breaking waves and the energy dissipation in the bottom boundary layer from the mean current, waves, or both. The bottom reference concentration is a function of the Shields parameter. Overall, the formula developed in this study yields the best agreement with the compiled data set compared with a number of existing formulas for estimating the suspended load.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
May 01, 2008
Accession Number
ADA508824

Entities

People

  • Benoit Camenen
  • Magnus Larson

Organizations

  • Kyoto University

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Energy and Power Technologies
  • Materials and Manufacturing Processes

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Boundaries
  • Boundary Layer
  • Coastal Engineering
  • Data Sets
  • Diffusion
  • Diffusivity
  • Engineering
  • Environment
  • Equations
  • Grain Size
  • Layers
  • Measurement
  • Mechanics
  • Mixing
  • Particles
  • Shear Stresses
  • Suspended Sediments

Readers

  • Coastal and Marine Engineering/Sediment Transport/Hydraulic Engineering
  • Computational Modeling and Simulation
  • Regression Analysis.