experimental study of incipient motion in mixed size sediment transport rates of five sediments were measured in a laboratory flume three of these sediments had the same mean size the same size distribution shape and different values of grain size distribution standard deviation the critical shear stress for incipient motion of the individual size fractions within these sediments was estimated as that shear stress that produced a small dimensionless transport rate the sorting of the sediment mixture had little effect on the critical shear stress of individual fractions once the median size d50 of the mixture and a fraction s relative size di d50 are accounted for our data combined with previously published data show a remarkably consistent relation between the critical shear stress of individual fractions and the fraction s relative grain size despite a broad variation in the available data of mixture sorting grain size distribution shape mean grain size and grain shape all fractions in a size mixture begin moving at close to the same value of bed shear stress during steady state transport conditions this result is apparently true for transport systems where the transport rates of individual fractions are determined solely by the flow and bed sediment recirculating systems as well as for systems where the fractional transport rates are imposed on the system feed systems this equivalence in initial motion results is important because natural transporting systems often show attributes of both types of behavior in an unknown combination

grain size and topographical differences between static and mobile armour layers a series of laboratory flume experiments under conditions of sediment starvation zero sediment feeding and recirculation were conducted in order to identify the temporal evolution and surface properties of static and mobile armour layers the experiments were carried out in an 8 m long flume using a bimodal grain size mixture d50 6 2 mm and a range of shear stresses ranging from 4 0 to 8 6 n m 2 the results confirm that a static armour layer is coarser than a mobile one and that the grain size of a mobile armour layer is rather insensitive to changes in the imposed flow strength an analysis of laser scan bed surveys revealed the highly structured and imbricated nature of the static armour layer under these conditions the vertical roughness length scale of the bed diminished and it became topographically less complex at higher forming discharges the topography of mobile armour layers created by rising discharges differed they exhibited a greater roughness length scale and were less organized despite the fact that the grain size of the surface material maintained an approximately constant value during recirculation also the mobile armour tended to create larger cluster structures than static armour layers when formed by higher discharges these differences were mainly due to the transport of the coarser fraction of bed sediments which diminished to zero over the static armour because of being hidden within the bed whereas in the mobile armour the coarser particles protruded into the flow and were actively transported increasing the vertical roughness length scale overall the results show that an examination of the grain size characteristics of armour layers cannot be used to infer sediment mobility and bed roughness detailed elevation models of exposed surfaces of gravel bed rivers are required to provide critical insight on the sediment availability and sedimentation processes copyright 2011 john wiley sons ltd

cross channel patterns of bed material transport in a poorly sorted sand bed channel abstract understanding of sediment transport comes largely from studies conducted on well sorted sand bed and poorly sorted gravel bed channels the aim of this study is to evaluate cross channel patterns of transport rate and grain size in a poorly sorted sand bed channel transport observations were collected from the san antonio river using a helley smith sampler during flows from 0 02 to 1 1 times bankfull capacity resulting transport rates and grain size distributions were pooled to describe eight sections across a channel transect that includes the lower bank and compared to local boundary material maximum transport rates are concentrated in the central zone of the streambed regardless of flow level but gravels and coarse sands are conveyed preferentially on one side of the bed grain size distributions change relatively little with flow and approximate the local bed material supply the size distributions associated with smaller transport rates near the channel margin become finer and more closely approximate the size characteristics of bank material at higher flows results extend patterns of differential routing of grain sizes to channel banks and establish the relative fluxes between the bed and bank environments the small gravel content in poorly sorted sand beds requires further attention because it can contribute to cross channel variation in sediment fluxes limit the development of sandy bedforms and influence the quality of streambed habitat

critical shear stress of bimodal sediment in sand gravel rivers a new model for the critical shear stress and the transport of graded sediment is presented the model is based on the size distribution of the bed surface and can be used to compute sediment transport rates in numerical simulations with an active layer model this model makes a distinction between unimodal and bimodal sediments it is assumed that all size fractions of unimodal sediments have the same critical shear stress while there is selective transport for the gravel fractions of bimodal sediments a recently published laboratory transport data set is used to calibrate our model

grain size distributions of bed load inferences from flume experiments using heterogeneous sediment beds abstract the grain size fractions in the bedload transported over the five heterogeneous sediment beds of different values of bed roughness were computed from the flume experiments the existence of an entrapment factor associated with the sorting observed from the bed to active layer was modeled based on the modified critical shear stress to estimate the grain size fractions in the transport layer under given hydraulic conditions the efficiency of these models was tested with the observed data subsequently the patterns of observed grain size distributions in the transport layer were tested to identify the distributions developed in the active layer due to sorting using three probability density functions pdf such as log normal log hyperbolic and log skew laplace tests indicated that a log skew laplace distribution fitted best for 49 a log hyperbolic for 31 and a log normal for 20 out of forty five bedload samples collected under unidirectional flow with changes in flow discharge and bed roughness the results of this study would be useful to specify the grain size distributions in the bedload formed under different hydrodynamic conditions in various sedimentary environments

theoretical development on the effects of changing flow hydraulics on incipient bed load motion 1 several decades of flume and field measurements have indicated that in rough turbulent flows the critical shields stress increases with increasing slope and associated decreasing relative depth this result contradicts the usual consideration of a decreased critical shields value on very steep slopes because of increased gravitational effects however recent studies have demonstrated that these experimental results could be reproduced with a force balance model if the classical logarithmic velocity profile was replaced with a velocity profile that was more compatible with available velocity measurements over gravel beds these measurements indicate the existence of a roughness layer that is a zone of almost constant velocity close to the bed whose properties mean velocity and turbulence depended on the flow s relative depth unfortunately velocity profile measurements for low relative depth associated with steep slopes are scarce and it is still difficult to include such flow properties in a force balance model flow resistance data on the basis of depth average velocity measurements are very common and cover a wide range of slopes and relative depths in this paper these data are used to fit a velocity profile including a roughness layer when used in a force balance model for incipient motion it adequately reproduced a data set composed of 270 critical shields values measured in a flume with near uniform sediments the relevance of this research to field problems is discussed using a data set composed of 92 critical shields stresses obtained from field measurements finally a model is proposed for field applications taking into account the slope effect

initial motion and pivoting characteristics of sand particles in uniform and heterogeneous beds experiments and modelling experiments are described in which the threshold conditions for sediment entrainment are measured for uniform and mixed sand beds beneath both steady and combined steady oscillatory flows derived critical shear stresses are compared with the mixed bed entrainment model of wiberg smith 1987 as predicted by the model coarser grains within a sand mixture are entrained at lower bed shear stresses than progressively finer grains entrainment occurs generally at lower shear stresses than predicted by the model especially under unidirectional flows this may be the result of grains resting in unusually unstable positions during the experiments because the beds are unworked at the start of the experiments the model of wiberg and smith predicts threshold conditions more accurately for the mixed beds if the bed pivoting angle is correctly defined the pivoting angles of the beds used here are measured using a new technique designed specifically for comparison with the threshold data the measured angles repeat the finding that the coarse grains are more mobile than the finer fractions of a mixture the results are poorly described by the pivoting angle model presented by wiberg smith 1987 and are better represented by a model of the form d di d50 after li komar 1986 where and are empirical constants the threshold model is found to be more effective using the improved pivoting relationship the entrainment of grains is found to be easier beneath unidirectional flows than combined flows in accordance with previous authors findings a suggestion that this result is caused by a change in the erosion mechanism beneath wave flows is made wave boundary layers may act as an extended laminar sublayer over bed grains and reduce the erosive efficiency of the overlying current flow the results of the experiment have implications for the natural sorting mechanisms of sediment beds being deposited in near threshold flows

incipient motion of sand gravel sediment mixtures experiments on the incipient motion of gravel and sand mixtures of 0 100 10 90 25 75 45 55 and 100 0 percent ratios of gravel and sand respectively were made in a laboratory flume a series of transport experiments was made for each of the five sediment beds and the critical shear stress for motion was calculated for 12 size ranges by interpolating or extrapolating the bed shear stress for a very small transport rate the sand in each of the five bed mixtures began to move at nearly the same bed shear stress all gravel sizes began to move at nearly the same bed shear stress in the 100 gravel experiments but in the sand gravel experiments the gravel showed an increase in critical shear stress with increasing size reasons for this change in the initiation of motion of the gravel from the 100 gravel to the sand gravel mixtures may result from the abundant sand sized sediment inhibiting the formation of a coarse bed surface layer in the sand gravel experiments

critical shear stress of natural sediments the critical shear stress of individual fractions ci in unimodal and weakly bimodal sediments shows little variation with grain size and depends only on the mean grain size bf the mixture for strongly bimodal sediments ci increases with grain size an apparent result of a lateral segregation of the finer and coarser fractions on the bed surface that causes ci to deviate from size independence in the direction of unisize shields values a quantitative definition of mixture bimodality may be used to estimate the degree of mixture bimodality beyond which a substantial size dependence of ci is observed and to predict the variation of ci with grain size in bimodal sediments because properties of sediment grain size distributions other than bimodality appear to have little influence on ci the trends presented here for 14 unimodal and bimodal sediments may be quite general

unified view of sediment transport by currents and waves iii graded beds the problem of suspended load and bed load transport in river and coastal flows over graded beds is addressed two effects are important the degree of exposure of the sediment particles of unequal size within a mixture hiding of smaller particles resting or moving between the larger particles and the nonlinear dependence of transport on particle diameter the former effect can be modeled by modifying the critical bed shear stress through a correction factor and by modifying the effective grain roughness through another correction factor the modeling of the effective bed shear stress parameter is studied by using various alternative methods based on comparison with suspended load and bed load transport data for graded beds in steady and oscillatory flow the most promising method is selected the proposed prediction method is found to work well for the fine sand bed range as well as the coarse sand gravel bed range

comparison of methods for predicting incipient motion for sand beds a comparison of four methods for predicting the incipient motion conditions of a uniform sand bed is presented the four methods are 1 the shields diagram 2 an empirical approach 3 a method derived from resolution of rotational forces and 4 a simplified resolution of rotational forces with a variable lift force coefficient the four methods are used to predict the incipient motion conditions for 97 experimental runs taken from seven independent experimental flume studies the effectiveness of predicting depth averaged incipient motion velocity for each of the four methods are compared the simplified resolution of rotational forces model 4 and shields method 1 were most successful in predicting the incipient motion velocity r2 0 77 0 74 and root mean square error rmse 0 18 0 15 respectively the slope of line of best fit for plots illustrating predicted versus measured incipient motion velocity were similar slope 0 63 0 65 respectively illustrating that both methods provide a s

surface based fractional transport rates mobilization thresholds and partial transport of a sand gravel sediment twenty eight coupled observations of flow transport and bed surface grain size distribution were made in a laboratory flume using a wide range of flows and a sediment with a very poorly sorted bimodal grain size distribution these observations permit the transport rates of individual size fractions to be scaled by the proportion of each size immediately available for transport on the bed surface the key to our observations is the use of a sediment in which each size fraction has been painted a different color which permits reliable repeatable and nondestructive measurement of the bed surface grain size distribution from photographs of the bed surface at a given flow the fractional transport rates may be divided into two parts a finer grained portion within which fractional transport rates are a function only of their proportion on the bed surface and total transport rate and a coarser grained portion for which fractional transport rates also depend on the proportion of individual grains within a fraction that remain essentially immobile throughout the experimental run we define the latter condition as one of partial transport and observe that the grain size separating partial and fully mobilized transport consistently increases with flow strength complete mobilization of a size fraction occurs at roughly twice the shear stress necessary for incipient motion of that fraction zones of partial and full mobility are quite distinct when fractional transport rates are scaled by the bed surface grain size distribution although a region of partial transport is evident when these data and other experimental and field observations are scaled by the bulk grain size distribution of the sediment bed critical shear stresses for the incipient motion of individual fractions in our experimental sediment vary over an order of magnitude a result strongly in contrast to many earlier observations but consistent with our observations of incipient motion in sediments with bimodal grain size distributions

a systematic analysis of eight decades of incipient motion studies with special reference to gravel bedded rivers data compiled from eight decades of incipient motion studies were used to calculate dimensionless critical shear stress values of the median grain size t c 50 calculated t c 50 values were stratified by initial motion definition median grain size type surface subsurface or laboratory mixture relative roughness and flow regime a traditional shields plot constructed from data that represent initial motion of the bed surface material reveals systematic methodological biases of incipient motion definition t c 50 values determined from reference bed load transport rates and from visual observation of grain motion define subparallel shields curves with the latter generally underlying the former values derived from competence functions define a separate but poorly developed field while theoretical values predict a wide range of generally higher stresses that likely represent instantaneous rather than time averaged critical shear stresses the available data indicate that for high critical boundary reynolds numbers and low relative roughnesses typical of gravel bedded rivers reference based and visually based studies have t c50 ranges of 0 052 0 086 and 0 030 0 073 respectively the apparent lack of a universal t 50 for gravel bedded rivers warrants great care in choosing defendable t c50 values for particular applications

application of structure from motion photogrammetry in laboratory flumes abstract structure from motion sfm photogrammetry has become widely used for topographic data collection in field and laboratory studies however the relative performance of sfm against other methods of topographic measurement in a laboratory flume environment has not been systematically evaluated and there is a general lack of guidelines for sfm application in flume settings as the use of sfm in laboratory flume settings becomes more widespread it is increasingly critical to develop an understanding of how to acquire and process sfm data for a given flume size and sediment characteristics in this study we 1 compare the resolution and accuracy of sfm topographic measurements to terrestrial laser scanning tls measurements in laboratory flumes of varying physical dimensions containing sediments of varying grain sizes 2 explore the effects of different image acquisition protocols and data processing methods on the resolution and accuracy of topographic data derived from sfm techniques and 3 provide general guidance for image acquisition and processing for sfm applications in laboratory flumes to investigate the effects of flume size sediment size and photo overlap on the density and accuracy of sfm data we collected topographic data using both tls and sfm in five flumes with widths ranging from 0 22 to 6 71 m lengths ranging from 9 14 to 30 48 m and median sediment sizes ranging from 0 2 to 31 mm acquisition time image overlap point density elevation data and computed roughness parameters were compared to evaluate the performance of sfm against tls we also collected images of a pan of gravel where we varied the distance and angle between the camera and sediment in order to explore how photo acquisition affects the ability to capture grain scale microtopographic features in sfm derived point clouds a variety of image combinations and sfm software package settings were also investigated to determine optimal processing techniques results from this study suggest that sfm provides topographic data of similar accuracy to tls at higher resolution and lower cost we found that about 100pixels per grain are required to resolve grain scale topography we suggest protocols for image acquisition and sfm software settings to achieve best results when using sfm in laboratory settings in general convergent imagery taken from a higher angle with at least several overlapping images for each desired point in the flume will result in an acceptable point cloud

on why gravel bed streams are paved bedload transport in poorly sorted gravel bed streams downstream of dams is considered bedload and typical bed material subpavement size distributions are observed to be similar it follows that the coarse half of the subpavement moves through a reach at a rate near that of the fine half since coarser grains are intrinsically less mobile than fine grains it follows that some mechanism must act to nearly equalize mobility it is hypothesized that the pavement seen in gravel bed streams at low flow is in fact in place during typical transport events capable of moving all available sizes this pavement can provide the equalizing mechanism by exposing proportionally more coarse grains to the flow field data are used to quantify this concept and to develop a predictive relation for river pavement the model indicates that pavement should be absent in most sand bed streams in agreement with observation

stochastic prediction of sediment transport in sand gravel bed rivers classical deterministic bedload transport predictors are applied to sand gravel bed rivers the turbulent bed shear stress is modeled according to a probability distribution to obtain realistic bedload transport rates at incipient motion in extending the predictors to stochastic predictors for nonuniform sediment many parameters that represent near bed turbulence and the particle size distribution must be chosen the parameters that give realistic results are chosen by analyzing the results of a new experimental flume dataset with relatively large water depths choosing other combinations of parameters may give equal total bedload transport rates but at the cost of large errors in fractional transport rates attention is given to the hiding exposure phenomenon and a hindrance effect related to nonuni form sediment validation based on two independent field datasets shows that successful predictions of particle sizes near the threshold for motion are feasible using the stochastic approach while the deterministic approach gives successful predictions well above incipient motion

a deep seismic reflection transect across the irish caledonides new reflection profiles recorded to 18s c 60km along a 600 km north south transect west of ireland wire lines provide a cross section of the irish caledonides from lewisian basement in the north to the variscan fold and thrust belt in the south and constrain the offshore extrapolations of major caledonide structures we interpret the profiles as showing the great glen fault and associated ne trending strike slip faults as near vertical structures which cut the whole crust and the uppermost mantle beneath the surface trace of the fair head clew bay line we image a north dipping zone which soles into horizontal layers just above the reflection moho the north dipping zone separates south dipping reflections above and to the north from north dipping reflections below and to the south from the fair head clew bay line as far south as the iapetus suture the lower crust contains north dipping packages of reflectors possibly related to acadian accretionary underplating the iapetus suture zone can be identified as a zone more than 50 km wide dipping north at 30 from 5 km depth offshore dingle peninsula to sole into the moho at c 30 km depth west of the shannon estuary in the upper crust the shallow part of the iapetus suture zone appears to be transported to the north by late caledonian retrocharriage or by variscan thrusting the iapetus suture does not penetrate through the present day reflection moho but there are scattered reflectors in the mantle not continuous with crustal reflectors perhaps relics of a subducted slab we recognize lower crustal reflectivity and the reflection moho along almost all the wire profiles regionally the travel time to the reflection moho varies from 9 s c 28 km offshore donegal northwest of ireland to 12 s c 35 km offshore kerry and cork southwest of ireland apparent moho offsets rapid lateral changes in the travel time to the reflection moho north of donegal and north of mayo are probably due to the great glen fault and associated faults the lower crustal reflectivity varies considerably in thickness and prevalent dip direction along the wire profiles in donegal bay this reflectivity is observed at depths less than 5 km c 1 5s whereas west of kerry prominent reflectivity is only observed beneath 6s c 17 km though the age of crustal reflectors cannot in general be determined beneath central ireland from donegal to dingle the lower crustal reflectors mimic in dip direction the structural vergence of the exposed dalradian and early palaeozoic rocks so that the lower crustal reflectivity patterns and probably much of the crust must be caledonian in age

downstream fining through selective particle sorting in an equilibrium drainage network the phenomenon of downstream fining has been attributed to both particle abrasion and selective particle sorting the latter is generally considered to play the dominant role within resistant lithologies it has been recognized that tributaries can disrupt fining patterns however few downstream fining studies have considered the entire fluvial network structure here we combine a theory for selective transport with a model of river basin evolution in order to simulate the dynamics of selective sorting throughout a drainage network previous numerical modeling studies of single thread or braided channels have treated downstream fining as a phenomenon driven by differential deposition rates we show however that in an eroding drainage network downstream fining emerges as a natural dynamic adjustment to variable water sediment and energy inputs even under conditions of uniform size distribution in sediment flux thus although selective deposition and abrasion clearly can and do play a role in some fluvial systems neither is necessary to produce downstream fining within a drainage network

entrainment of gravel from naturally sorted riverbed material the critical dimensionless shear stress ci required to entrain a given size particle di was computed from extensive bedload transport measurements in three self formed rivers that have naturally sorted gravel and cobble bed material the value of ci was determined to be significantly affected by the size distribution of the riverbed material for bed particles between 0 3 to 4 2 times the median diameter of the subsurface bed material d50 the average critical dimensionless shear stress ci is equal to ci 0 0834 di d50 0 872 with a coefficient of determination of 0 980 for bed particles larger than 4 2 times d50 ci appears to approach a constant value of approximately 0 020 in a noneroding channel thus ci varies from 0 25 to 0 020 for a given particle depending on the ratio of di to d50 previous investigations of the hydraulic conditions required to entrain coarse riverbed material have reported critical shear stress values ranging from 0 25 to 0 020 for a given particle size this analysis indicates that virtually all of the variation is due to differences in the subsurface bed material size distribution this analysis shows that ci varies almost inversely proportional to the particle diameter for a nonuniform bed material therefore bed particles between 0 3 to 4 2 times d50 are entrained at nearly the same discharge an investigation of the hydraulic characteristics and bed material mobility of 24 self formed gravel bed rivers in colorado determined that particles as large as the median diameter of the bed surface were entrained by discharges equal to the bankfull stage or less particles as large as the 90th percentile fraction were entrained by the bankfull discharge in nine of the rivers studied consequently in these rivers a significant fraction of the riverbed was entrained rather frequently over a period of years although the transport rate was very small