Validation of transport and friction formulae for upper plane bed by experiments in rectangular pipe

Abstract

The paper describes results of validation of authors' recently proposed formulae for sediment transport and bed friction in the upper plane bed regime using laboratory experiments in a pressurized pipe. Flows of mixture of water and fine to medium ballotini (d50 = 0.18 mm) were observed in a rectangular pipe (51 x 51 mm) with a deposit at the bottom of the pipe. A comparison of test results with transport-formula predictions shows a satisfactory match confirming a good prediction ability of the proposed transport formula at high bed shear. A prediction ability of the friction formulae appears to be less convincing but still reasonable. A joint use of the formulae for transport and friction predicts the delivered concentration of transported sediment within the accuracy range of ± 40 per cent for flows in which transported sediments strongly affect the bed friction, i.e. for flows with delivered concentration of sediment higher than say 3 per cent.

Keywords

• sediment transport
• sheet flow
• bed load
• suspended load