Abstract

A set of laboratory experiments was carried out to distinguish flow characteristics(bed origin, shear velocity, turbulence intensity, turbulent kinetic energy) between beds of differing gravel angularity. Ten vertical profiles of velocity measurements were taken from angular and rounded fixed gravel beds with a 16 MHz micro acoustic Doppler velocimeter (ADV) sampling at 50 Hz. Both gravel beds had a bottom slope of 0.2% and were in the intermediate - roughness scale. Shear velocities were calculated using three common methods: St Venant, Reynolds stress, and Clauser. The Reynolds stress method resulted in the closest visual match to turbulence distributions proposed by others. The bed origin was found to be on average 0.24D50 and 0.21D50 for the angular and rounded gravel beds respectively. These differences, however, were not statistically significant. Turbulence intensity within 20% of the bed showed considerable scatter. The difficult measuring conditions likely prevented the ADV to detect significant differences of turbulence intensity in the longitudinal and transverse directions between the two gravel beds. But the ADV measurements in the vertical direction may well resolve turbulence even in difficult flow conditions (determined by acoustic Doppler performance curve formulation). For the vertical direction, the angular gravel bed showed an increase in TImax that extended throughout the profile. The increased turbulence intensity had a concomitant effect of increasing the turbulent kinetic energy for the angular bed.

Degree

MS

College and Department

Ira A. Fulton College of Engineering and Technology; Civil and Environmental Engineering

Rights

http://lib.byu.edu/about/copyright/

Date Submitted

2008-07-16

Document Type

Thesis

Handle

http://hdl.lib.byu.edu/1877/etd2558

Keywords

ADV, open-channel flow, acoustic Doppler velocimeter, roughness, turbulence

Language

English

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