Open-channel flows are ubiquitous in nature and play a central role in many hydraulic engineering problems. This flow type occurs almost exclusively under fully-rough turbulent conditions and it is not uncommon for the relative submergence of these flows to be low. Despite this, most theory has so far been developed for smooth wall flows or rough-bed flows at high submergence while its applicability at low relative submergence remains questionable. This thesis therefore aims to contribute towards an improved understanding of turbulence structure in rough-bed open-channel flow at low to intermediate relative submergence. Experiments were conducted to collect turbulent velocity field data for nine different flow scenarios, covering roughness Reynolds numbers between 175 and 900, and relative submergence between 2.5 and 7.5. Each flow scenario was measured independently using particle image velocimetry (PIV) in five distinct configurations. The PIV system was first configured to make two-component velocity measurements with a very wide field of view (up to twenty flow depths) along the channel centreline in a streamwise-wall-normal plane. These measurements were supplemented with three-component stereoscopic PIV recordings along the same plane albeit with a shorter field of view. The third, fourth and fifth set ups involved stereoscopic PIV in three separate transverse-wall-normal planes and thus ensured the complete lateral coverage of the flow field from the sidewall to the centreline. The four-camera arrangement of each of the present stereoscopic PIV configurations was exploited to obtain velocity field statistics with significantly reduced contributions from measurement noise. The thesis reports distributions of bulk velocity statistics and spectra of all three velocity components. In addition, characteristic large scale features of the instantaneous flow are examined using velocity field visualisation, two-point velocity correlations and premultiplied velocity spectra. Further analysis is carried out on the time-averaged flow field to visualise secondary current patterns and to study their lateral extent.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:606464 |
| Date | January 2014 |
| Creators | Stewart, Mark Thomas |
| Publisher | University of Aberdeen |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | http://digitool.abdn.ac.uk:80/webclient/DeliveryManager?pid=210848 |
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