62nd Annual Meeting of the APS Division of Fluid Dynamics
Volume 54, Number 19
Sunday–Tuesday, November 22–24, 2009;
Minneapolis, Minnesota
Session PK: Fluid-Driven Particle Flows
11:40 AM–1:50 PM,
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Room: 101J
Chair: John Brandenburg, Orbital Technologies Corporation
Abstract ID: BAPS.2009.DFD.PK.1
Abstract: PK.00001 : Effect of dynamic bed topography on turbulent flow structure in a gravel-bed river
11:40 AM–11:53 AM
Authors:
Arvind Singh
(University of Minnesota)
Fernando Porte-Agel
(University of Minnesota)
Efi Foufoula-Georgiou
(University of Minnesota)
A series of flume experiments were conducted at St. Anthony Falls
Laboratory, University of Minnesota to study the effect of
bedform dynamics
on the flow over a gravel bed comprised of a wide distribution of
grain
sizes. Instantaneous high-frequency velocities were sampled using
ADV at a
frequency of 200 Hz, while the simultaneous bed elevations were
sampled
using SONAR transducers at a frequency of 0.1 Hz. Spectral
analysis of the
measured velocity fluctuations reveals the existence of two distinct
power-law scaling regimes. At high frequencies, an inertial
subrange of
turbulence with Kolmogorov scaling is observed. At low
frequencies, another
scaling regime with spectral slope of about -1.1 is found. This
range is the
signature of the evolving multi-scale bed topography on the near-bed
velocity fluctuations. The two scaling ranges are separated by a
spectral
gap, i.e., a range of intermediate scales with no energy
contribution. The
high-frequency limit of the spectral gap corresponds to the
integral scale
of turbulence. The low-frequency end of the gap corresponds to
the scale of
the smallest bedforms identified by the velocity sensor, which
depends on
the position of the sensor. Comparison with spectral densities of
bed
elevations also shows that relatively low-resolution velocity
measurements
collected near the channel bed can be used to estimate the travel
time of
the largest bedforms.
To cite this abstract, use the following reference: http://meetings.aps.org/link/BAPS.2009.DFD.PK.1