Refinement of the Fread Method for Improved Tracking of Stream Discharges during Unsteady Flows
Publication: Journal of Hydraulic Engineering
Volume 143, Issue 6
Abstract
There are a plethora of analytical methods that can account for the effect of unsteady flow (i.e., hysteretic behavior) on steady-state stage-discharge rating curves (hQRCs) used to continuously estimate discharge in open-channel flow. One of the most complete and accurate methods for wide rectangular channels is the Fread method. This paper presents an extension of the method that can be applicable to arbitrary geometry of the channel cross section by replacing the hydraulic depth with the hydraulic radius and adjusting formulations associated with wave celerity coefficient and kinematic wave equation in the original Fread method. The modified Fread method improves the accuracy associated with the estimation of conveyance factor and energy slope. It is particularly useful for low-aspect-ratio (i.e., the width-to-depth ratio) channels where the original method’s assumption does not properly hold. These improvements are tested at two sites, each representative of small streams and midsize rivers, to quantitatively illustrate the significance and performance of the refined method.
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Acknowledgments
The authors gratefully acknowledge Professor Muthiah Perumal at the Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee (India) and the anonymous reviewers who provided valuable inputs. The authors would also like to thank Dr. Brennan T. Smith, Dr. Boualem Hadjerioua, and Mr. Mark Christian of the Energy-Water-Ecosystem Engineering Group in Environmental Sciences Division at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (USA), and Dr. Firoozfar Ali Reza of IIHR—Hydroscience and Engineering at the University of Iowa (USA) for assisting in evaluating this paper. The authors acknowledge the support from Grant 11-TI-C06 of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport (Korea) and the Iowa Flood Center (IFC) at the University of Iowa for conducting the present study.
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Published In
Journal of Hydraulic Engineering
Volume 143 • Issue 6 • June 2017
Copyright
©2017 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Aug 7, 2015
Accepted: Sep 19, 2016
Published online: Feb 7, 2017
Published in print: Jun 1, 2017
Discussion open until: Jul 7, 2017
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