Dimensionless Erosion Laws for Cohesive Sediment
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VIEW THE REPLYPublication: Journal of Hydraulic Engineering
Volume 142, Issue 2
Abstract
A method of achieving a dimensionless collapse of erosion-rate data for cohesive sediments is proposed and shown to work well for data collected in flume-erosion tests on mixtures of sand and mud (silt plus clay sized particles) for a wide range of mud fraction. The data collapse corresponds to a dimensional erosion law of the form , where is erosion rate, is shear stress, is the threshold shear stress for erosion to occur, and . This result contrasts with the commonly assumed linear erosion law , where is a measure of how easily sediment is eroded. The data collapse prompts a re-examination of the way that results of the hole-erosion test (HET) and jet-erosion test (JET) are customarily analyzed, and also calls into question the meaningfulness not only of proposed empirical relationships between and , but also of the erodibility parameter itself. Fuller comparison of flume-erosion data with hole-erosion and jet-erosion data will require revised analyses of the HET and JET that drop the assumption and, in the case of the JET, certain simplifying assumptions about the mechanics of jet scour.
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Acknowledgments
Jesse Roberts (Sandia National Laboratories) provided erosion-rate data for quartz particles and for Canaveral Harbor sediments in tabulated form. I had useful correspondence about the jet erosion test with Kerry Mazurek (University of Saskatchewan, Canada), Fabienne Mercier (IRSTEA, France), Andrew Simon (Cardno ENTRIX), and Tony Wahl (U.S. Bureau of Reclamation). Wahl provided the photographs of the HET device shown in Fig. 1. In working with other investigators’ data, all errors of interpretation are my own. Mention of trade names is for identification purposes only and does not constitute endorsement by the U.S. Geological Survey.
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Journal of Hydraulic Engineering
Volume 142 • Issue 2 • February 2016
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© 2015 American Society of Civil Engineers.
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Received: Sep 22, 2014
Accepted: Jun 16, 2015
Published online: Aug 26, 2015
Discussion open until: Jan 26, 2016
Published in print: Feb 1, 2016
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