Comparison of bed shear stress in plane and curvilinear bed channel using multiple criteria

Abstract

Experimental investigation on fluvial hydraulics needs a correct and accurate estimation of bed shear stress, which governs the hydrodynamics of the sediment transport. Present work compares bed shear stress estimated from the reach-averaged bed shear stress, Log profile, Quadratic stress law, Prandtl’s seventh power law, Reynolds shear stress, turbulent kinetic energy and graphical method approaches by doing experimentation on plane bed and curvilinear bed channel. On plane bed condition, the bed shear estimated from Reynolds stresses and Graphical methods are comparable to the reach-averaged bed shear stress (the difference is within 10%). However, all approaches estimate approximately less than 10% from reach-averaged bed shear stress in curvilinear bed channel.