Numerical Study of Sediment Transport under Unsteady Flow

Abstract

Numerical model for simulating sediment transport in unsteady flow is incomplete in several aspects: first of all, the numerical schemes have been proved suitable for the simulation of flow over rigid bed needs to be reevaluated for unsteady flow over mobile bed; secondly, existing non-equilibrium sediment transport models are empirically developed and therefore lack of consistency regarding the evaluation of the non-equilibrium parameters; thirdly, the sediment transport in various applications have unique features which needs to be considered in the models. Sediment transport in unsteady flows was studied using analytical and numerical methods. A one dimensional (1D) finite volume method (FVM) model was developed. Five popular numerical schemes were implemented into the model and their performances were evaluated under highly unsteady flow condition. A novel physically-based non-equilibrium sediment transport model was established to describe the non-equilibrium sediment transport process. Infiltration effects on flow and sediment transport was included to make the model applicable to simulate irrigation induced soil erosion in furrows. The Laursen (1958) formula was adopted and modified to calculate the erodibility of fine-grain sized soil, and then verified by laboratory and field datasets. The numerical model was applied to a series of simulations of sediment transport in highly unsteady flow including the dam break erosional flow, flash flood in natural rivers and irrigation flows and proved to be applicable in various applications. The first order schemes were able to produce smooth and reasonably accurate results, and spurious oscillations were observed in the simulated results produced by second order schemes. The proposed non-equilibrium sediment transport model yielded better results than several other models in the literatures. The modified Laursen (1958) formula adopted was applicable in calculating the erodibility of the soil in irrigation. Additionally, it was indicated that the effect of the jet erosion and the structural failure of the discontinuous bed topography cannot be properly accounted for due to the limitation of 1D model. The comparison between the simulated and measured sediment discharge hydrographs indicated a potential process associated to the transport of the fine-grain sized soil in the irrigation furrows.