MATHEMATICAL MODELLING OF GRAVEL BED RIVERS

Abstract

Gravel bed rivers differ from sand bed rivers in many fluvial processes such as resistance to flow, sediment movement, armouring etc. These rivers are subject to very high degree of variation in sediment supply and discharges over time and magnitude. Their geometries are charaterised by steep slope and rough bed leading to occurrence of a series of chutes and jumps. These characteristics call for special attention for simulating them mathematically. Significant research activities in recent decades have contributed towards better understanding of the gravel bed rivers and mathematically represent many of the phenomena associated with them. A fully coupled one dimensional mathematical model to simulate gradually varied unsteady sediment laden water movement in gravel bed rivers is developed in this work....