Sediment Transport, Part III: Bed forms and Alluvial Roughness

TLDR

The study presents a method to classify bed forms, predict their dimensions, and estimate the effective hydraulic roughness. The method derives relationships from analysis of reliable flume and field data to classify bed forms and predict their dimensions and hydraulic roughness. Verification with ~1,500 data sets shows the method accurately predicts hydraulic roughness, outperforms prior approaches, and can also estimate flow depth and total bed‑material load.

Abstract

A method is presented that makes the classification of bed forms, the prediction of the bed‐form dimensions and the effective hydraulic roughness of the bed forms feasible. The proposed relationships are based on the analysis of reliable flume and field data. A verification analysis using about 1,500 (alternative) reliable flume and field data shows good results in predicting the hydraulic roughness (friction factor). For field conditions, the proposed method yields considerably better results than previously proposed methods, which are reviewed here. The proposed method has also been used to predict the flow depth and the total bed‐material load.