Effect of sediment particles on the velocity profile of sediment–water mixtures in open-channel flow

Abstract

The presence of sediment particles in open-channel flow has an important effect on turbulence; thus, an empirical, turbulent eddy viscosity formula was established for application in the limit for low concentrations. The current study establishes a theoretical relation for the mixture viscosity based on the two-phase mixture model. The percentage contribution of the three mechanisms of mixture viscosity, namely, fluid turbulence (FT), particle turbulence (PT), and inter-particle collisions (IPCs), was calculated under different conditions. The study results indicate that the contribution of FT is dominant, whereas those of PT and IPCs are not significant when the particle inertia (PI) is small, suggesting that the movement of sediment-laden flows is mainly controlled by the fluid properties. The effects of PT and IPCs increase with increases in sediment concentration and PI. Specifically, the effect of collisions among particles generally becomes dominant near the bed surface. A good agreement between the calculated velocity profile of the mixture and available experimental data for large particle sizes and high concentrations proves that the proposed relation for mixture viscosity is more reasonable than the previous empirical relation owing to the consideration of the effects of PT and IPCs, and, thus, can be applied to both dilute and dense suspensions.