Rivers mostly follow a winding course in their alluvial plane.
In their evolution the curvature of individual bends increases and they migrate downstream. Although problems mostly occur when bends get strongly curved, the majority of experimental and theoretical studies until now has been concerned with mildly curved flow. The hydraulics in strongly curved flow, however, are fundamentally different as convective accelerations may become predominant and the simplified equations are no longer valid. This research project mainly consists of an experimental and a theoretical part, which will be done in parallel. The choice of optimal experimental parameters will be based on prior numerical simulations and the experimental data will be used to evaluate and eventually adapt the numerical model.