The Effect of Wall Jet Flow on Local Scour Hole

Abstract

This thesis reports on investigations carried out to study of the effect of horizontal wall jets on rough, fixed and mobile beds in open channel flow. Experimental tests were carried out, using fixed and mobile sediment beds. Computer simulation models for the flow within the jet and resulting sediment transport were developed and their results analysed in this study. In the experimental phase, tests were carried out with both fixed and mobile sediment beds. The shape of the water surface, numerous point velocity measurements and measurements of the evolving scour hole shape were made. Detailed descriptions of the turbulent flow field over a fixed rough bed and for scour holes at equilibrium were obtained for a range of initial jet conditions. Fully turbulent, multiphase flow was modelled using the Fluent Computational Fluid Dynamics software. This was used to analyze the flow caused by a jet in a rectangle open-channel with a rough bed, and also the flow pattern in a channel with a local scour hole. The volume of fluid (VOF) multiphase method and K- model was used to model the fluid flow in both cases. The model predictions of velocity and shear stress were compared against experimental observations. The experimental data was used to develop new empirical relationships to describe the pattern of boundary shear stress caused by a wall jet over fixed beds and in equilibrium scour holes. These relationships were linked with existing bed-load transport rate models in order to predict the temporal evolution of scour holes. An analytical model describing the relationship between the wall jet flow and the development of a local scour hole shape was reported and its predictions compared with experimental data.