Mobile Bed – Sediment Transport

Jim O'Brien
FLO-2D Software, Inc.
 Sediment Transport Considerations
 For large river flood events (~100-year) the effect of
scour/deposition on the maximum water surface is
negligible
 For small flood events ~ 2 yr to 10 yr or alluvial fan
flooding - avulsion, blockage, conveyance loss
associated with scour/deposition is important
 Sediment Transport

Uncoupled sediment transport

 FLO-2D calculates flow hydraulics, then
estimates sediment transport
 The sediment is nonuniformly distributed on the
channel cross section. Uniformly on floodplain.
 Assumes changes in channel geometry or
floodplain topography for a given timestep are
relatively small and do not significantly effect the
flow hydraulics
 Sediment Transport Concepts
Δ Storage (scour/deposition) for a channel or
floodplain element =
Sediment supply in – sediment transport capacity out

Generally 5 or more timesteps (1-10 seconds) are

required to change the bed elevation by 0.10 ft
 Sediment Transport Equations
Choice of nine sediment transport equations determine
sediment transport capacity:
 Zeller-Fullerton
 Yang

 Engelund & Hansen

 Ackers & White

 Laursen

 Tofaletti

 Woo-MPM

 MPM-Smart

 Karim-Kennedy

Each formula was based on unique river conditions.

Research equation applicability to each project.
 Sediment Transport Equations

Zeller-Fullerton: Multiple regression sediment

transport equation for a range of channel bed and
alluvial floodplain conditions.
 A computer generated solution of the Meyer-Peter,
Muller bed-load equation combined with Einstein’s
suspended load to generate a bed material load
 Assumes all sediment sizes are available for
transport (no armoring). The original Einstein
method is assumed to work best when the bedload
constitutes a significant portion of the total load
 Sediment Transport Equations
Yangs: Total sediment concentration is a function of the
potential energy dissipation per unit weight of water
(stream power ~ f(velocity and slope))
 Sediment concentration is a series of dimensionless
regression relationships.
 Based on field & flume data with sediment particles
ranging from 0.137 mm to 1.71 mm and flows depths
from 0.037 ft to 49.9 ft. Mostly limited to medium to
coarse sands and flow depths less than 3 ft
 Can be applied to sand and gravel
 Sediment Transport Equations
Engelund-Hansen Method: Bagnold’s stream power
concept was applied with the similarity principle to
derive a sediment transport function.
 Uses energy slope, velocity, bed shear stress,
median particle diameter, specific weight of
sediment and water, and gravitational acceleration
 Can be used in both dune bed forms and upper
regime (plane bed) D50 > 0.15 mm
 Sediment Transport Equations
Ackers-White Method: Expressed sediment transport based
on Bagnold’s stream power concept. Only a portion of the
bed shear stress is effective in moving coarse sediment.
The total bed shear stress contributes to the suspended fine
sediment transport.
 Dimensionless parameters include a mobility number,
representative sediment number and sediment transport
function.
 The various coefficients were determined from laboratory
data for Di > 0.04 mm and Froude numbers < 0.8. The
condition for coarse sediment incipient motion agrees well
with Sheild’s criteria. The Ackers-White approach tends to
overestimate the fine sand transport.
 Sediment Transport Equations
Laursen’s Transport Function: Had good agreement with
field data from small rivers. For larger rivers the
correlation between measured data and predicted sediment
transport was poor (Graf, 1971).
 Involves relationship between the flow hydraulics and
sediment discharge. The bed shear stress arises from the
Manning-Strickler formula. Based on flume data for < Di
0.2 mm.
 Expresses the effectiveness of the turbulence in mixing
suspended sediments. The critical tractive force in the
sediment concentration equation is given by the Shields
diagram.
 Sediment Transport Equations
Toffaleti: Procedure to calculate the total sediment load by
estimating the unmeasured load.
 Following the Einstein approach, the bed material load =
sum of the bedload discharge and the suspended load in
three separate zones.
 Bedload concentration from his empirical equation for the
lower-zone suspended load discharge and then computed
the bedload.
 Simons and Senturk (1976) reported that Toffaleti’s eqn
compared well with 339 river and 282 laboratory data sets.
 Sediment Transport Equations
MPM-Woo Relationship: For steep sloped, sand bed
channels. Woo et al. equation (1988) to account for the
variation in fluid properties due to high sediment
concentration. Mussetter, et al. (1994) linked Woo’s
relationship with the Meyer-Peter-Mueller bed-load
equation.
 Multiple regression relationship computes the bed material
load as a function of velocity, depth, slope, sediment size
and Cvf Applicable for velocities < 20 fps (6 mps), a bed
slope < 0.04, a D50 < 4.0 mm, and a Cvf < 60,000 ppm.
 Estimates high bed material load in channels for which the
other sediment transport equations are not applicable.
 Sediment Transport Equations
MPM-Smart Relationship: For steep channels ranging from
3% to 20%. Smart (1984) modified the MPM equation
(1988) to account for deficiencies in roughness values in
steep channels.
 Used for sediment sizes greater than 0.4 mm.
 Modified to account for the affects of nonuniform
sediment distributions.
 Will generate sediment transport rates that approach those
of Englund-Hansen on steep slopes.
 Sediment Transport Equations
Karim-Kennedy: Fsimplified Karim-Kennedy equation (F.
Karim, 1998). Nonlinear multiple regression relationship
based on velocity, bed form, sediment size, and friction
factor for a large data set. Use for large rivers with non-
uniform sand/gravel conditions.
 Sediment sizes 0.08 mm to 0.4 mm (river) and 0.18 mm to
29 mm (flume) and up to 50,000 ppm concentration.
 Slope range 0.0008 to 0.0243.
 Will yield similar results to Laursen’s and Toffaleti’s
equations.
 SEDTRANS.OUT

MAXIMUM SEDIMENT TRANSPORT CAPACITY (CFS OR CMS) FOR GRID ELEMENT: 1961
(1 OF 8 DIRECTIONS FOR FLOODPLAIN FLOW):

TIME(HRS) ZELLER- YANG ENGLUND- ACKERS- LAURSEN TOFFALETI MPM-WOO

FULLERTON HANSEN WHITE

0.10 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000

0.20 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000
0.30 0.041 0.261 0.186 0.283 0.083 0.071 1.292
0.40 0.172 1.565 0.970 2.567 0.569 0.246 2.820
0.50 0.328 2.495 1.904 5.952 0.953 0.385 4.458
0.60 0.548 4.086 3.439 12.569 1.471 0.725 6.447
0.70 0.599 4.319 3.781 14.099 1.563 0.638 7.510

Profiles
Sediment Routing by Size Fraction
Sediment Diameter (mm) Percent Finer
0.074 0.058
0.149 0.099
0.297 0.156
0.590 0.230
1.19 0.336
2.38 0.492
4.76 0.693
9.53 0.808
19.05 0.913
38.10 1.000
 Bed Armoring
The armoring process occurs when the upper bed layers
become coarser as the finer sediment is transported out of
the bed. An armor layer occurs when coarse sediment
covers the bed and protects the finer sediment below.
 Bed Armoring
 The FLO-2D model tracks the sediment size
distribution and volumes in an exchange layer.
 Exchange layer - three times the D90 grain size of
the bed material (Yang, 1996).
 When the exchange layer is reduced to 33% of the
original volume, it is replenished from the initial bed
material.
 Potential armoring is automatically assessed if
sediment routing by size fractions is invoked. No
switches.
 Bed Armoring (cont.)

The potential armor layer is evaluated on a timestep

basis for each channel element by assessing the
volume of each size fraction in the exchange layer.
 Sediment Scour and Deposition

 For each timestep, the sediment transport capacity is

compared to the sediment inflow/outflow in a floodplain
or channel element.

 The sediment deposition/scour then effects the hydraulics

for the next time steps in terms of slope
changes…moderating effect.
McCoy
Whitewater
 Sediment Transport Control

In CONT.DAT
 Set ISED = 1
 Set IMUD = 0
 Set XCONC = 0.
In CHAN.DAT
 Set ISEDN = 1 (line 1 for channel sediment transport)
Create SED.DAT
 SED.DAT file
Line 1 is the hyperconcentrated sediment flow parameters
1 SEDCHAR = ‘M’, VA, VB, YSA, YSB, SGSM, XKX
*** NOTE: IF ISED IS EQUAL TO 0, IGNORE REST OF FILE ***
Line 2 lists parameters for sediment routing.
2 SEDCHAR = ‘C’, ISEDEQG, ISEDSIZEFRAC, DFIFTY, SGRAD, SGST, DRYSPWT, CVFG, ISEDSUPPLY, ISEDISPLAY
*** NOTE: IF ISEDSIZEFRAC = 1, LINE 3 IS FOLLOWED BY SEVERAL LINE 4s (one for each size fraction). THE COMBINED LINES 3
AND 4 ARE A SEDIMENT GROUP. THE FLOODPLAIN SEDIMENT IS ENTERED AS THE FIRST SEDIMENT GROUP.
SUCCESSIVE GROUPS CAN REPRESENT CHANNEL REACHES ***
Line 3 has the sediment routing by size fraction control parameters.
3 SEDCHAR = ‘Z’, ISEDEQI, BEDTHICK, CVFI
***NOTE: LINE 4 IS REPEATED FOR EACH SIZE FRACTION AND EACH GROUP MUST HAVE THE SAME NUMBER OF SIZE
FRACTIONS (IDENTICAL SEDIAMs)***
Line 4 lists the sediment routing by size fraction sediment size distribution.
4 SEDCHAR = ‘P’, SEDIAM, SEDPERCENT
***NOTE: IF IDEBRV IS EQUAL TO 0 IN THE CONT.DAT FILE, IGNORE LINE 5 ***
Line 5 contains debris basin parameters.
5 SEDCHAR = ‘D’, JDEBNOD, DEBRISV
Line 6 represents the optional scour depth limitation for channel and floodplain grid elements.
6 SEDCHAR = ‘E’, SCOURDEP

Line 7 contains the list of rigid bed nodes.

7 SEDCHAR = ‘R’, ICRETN(N), N = 1, number of rigid bed nodes
*** IF ISEDSUPPLY IS EQUAL TO 0, IGNORE LINES 8 and 9 ***
Line 8 is the grid element, floodplain or channel switch, coefficient and exponent for a sediment supply rating curve.
8 SEDCHAR = ‘S’, ISEDGRID(N), ISEDCFP(N), ASED(N), BSED(N), N = 1, number of sediment supply rating curves
Line 9 is the sediment supply rating curve size fraction distribution
9 SEDCHAR = ‘N’, SSEDIAM, SSEDPERCENT