Channel evolution after dam removal in a poorly-sorted sediment mixture: experiments and numerical model

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Event details

Date 21.11.2014
Hour 10:0011:00
Speaker Carles Ferrer Boix
Location
Category Conferences - Seminars
Dam removal is commonly used for river restoration. However, there are still some uncertainties associated with dam removal, mainly related to the sediment transport rates released downstream from the deposit that had previously filled the impoundment. This research studies the physical response to dam removal in the antecedent deposit by answering the following questions: a) how does an initial channel excavated into the deposit evolve, and b) what is the time distribution of the material released during the early stages of the process. These goals are achieved by an experimental campaign using a poorly sorted mixture of sediment in the antecedent deposit. This investigation provides new insights of the width evolution when the sediment is composed of a poorly-sorted mixture. This evolution is linked to the bed degradation rates: channel narrows during a rapid incisional phase, and subsequently widens when bed degradation rates decrease. These features are modeled through a new numerical model accounting for mixtures. More specifically, a set of equations has been derived for the variation of bed elevation, channel bottom width and bed grain size distribution, that when solved numerically, describe the observed channel processes.

Dr. Carles Ferrer Boix got his MSc and PhD in Civil Engineering in the Technical University of Catalonia (UPC) and he is currently postdoctoral and teaching fellow at the Department of Geography, at the University of British Columbia (Vancouver, Canada). His main interests are sediment transport, river morphology, laboratory experiments and numerical modelling. Currently he is mostly performing experimental research on mountain streams.

Practical information

  • Informed public
  • Free

Organizer

  • LCH - Laboratoire de constructions hydrauliques

Contact

  • Mário J. Franca, Anton Schleiss

Tags

sediment transport dam removal

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