Concave-upward composite river bank profile shape at migrating meander bends

D. M. Waterman, M. H. García

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapter

Abstract

In this investigation, we performed an analytical treatment of the sediment mass conservation equation applied to bank material mobilized as bedload (the non-cohesive coarse-grained lower layer of the composite river bank) to ascertain details about bank profile shape. The bank profile has a significant influence on meander migration rates when implementing a parallel migration assumption in physically-based erosion algorithms in meandering river migration models. However, such profiles are not readily specified a priori, as they are part of the solution of the problem. The analysis revealed that a straight-forward analytical function to express the shape for a parallel-migrating bank was not tractable; however, the necessity of the bank profile to be concave-upwards to satisfy the simplified governing equations was demonstrated. This contradicts predictions made by commonly used models that implement an excess shear stress formulation for entrainment rate without incorporating sediment flux divergence terms in the mass conservation equation.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationRiver Flow 2016
Subtitle of host publicationIowa City, USA, July 11-14, 2016
PublisherCRC Press
Pages1098-1105
Number of pages8
ISBN (Electronic)9781317289128
ISBN (Print)9781315644479
StatePublished - Jun 22 2016

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General Engineering

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