Research group

River and delta morphodynamics

Bar patterns
MSc course Fluvial Systems GEO4-4436
Dr. Maarten G. Kleinhans
Rakaia River, NZ, Geoff Leeming
Brahmaputra, Bangladesh, Google Earth Ganges, India, Google Earth
Sunwapta River, USA
This lecture: main questions and points
why do bars form?
why do different bar patterns form?
what causes dynamics of bars?
Position of this lecture in the course
Flow, sediment transport and channel
morphodynamics
River patterns
Bifurcations and avulsion
From source to sink and in between
Cross-talk: main terminology
Tabular cross-stratification
lateral accretion surfaces
huh? stuff that migrating bars
and point bars leave
Morphodynamics: Sedimentology:
channel, bars and bends,
levees
channel belt
Forced bar Point bar
Free bar Braid bar,
mid-channel bar
Nonlinear transport and
Transverse bed slope effect
Huh? thought spiral flow
caused meandering?
10/51
Bar pattern vs channel pattern
Bar pattern
interaction flow and sediment
in a channel
width-depth ratio!
Channel pattern
interaction flow (and bars) with banks
out of the channel:
bank erosion and floodplain formation
11/51
Alternate bars and bank erosion
low flow conditions!
Bridge (2003) Rivers and Floodplains
Instability of a plane bed
imagine
a plane bed with a perturbation
attracts flow
much more sediment transport (nonlinear)
perturbation grows!
leads to
braiding
cellular model
Murray Paola 1994
The sky is the limit?
bars grow increasingly fast from initial
perturbation
is there an end to this?
shear stress vector
versus
sediment transport vector
transverse slope effect
(gravity)
(Ikeda et al. 1981)
but: spiral flow effect
(Struiksma et al. 1985; Talmon et al. 1995;
Kleinhans et al. 2008)
Transverse bed slope effect
transverse
slope effect
spiral
flow effect
15/51
How to reduce transverse slope?
bendway weirs fixed layers
longitudinal dams bottom vanes
16/51
Bar theory (1)
(Struiksma et al. 1985)
flow and sediment interact
q
s
~ mu
n
(m=constant)
n>3 for theoretical reasons
n=3 for Meyer-Peter & Mueller
n=5 for Engelund & Hansen
slope effects on sediment:
downslope easier
transverse slope in bends >> river gradient
secondary flows in bends: upslope
sharper bends stronger secondary flow
17/51
Bar theory (2)
flow needs length to adapt to bed (bars)
relaxation length
w
:
imagine: momentum!
sediment too!
relaxation length
s
:
imagine: (transverse) slope effect
bed cannot suddenly jump
18/51
Forced bars and free bars
Forced bars: stationairy,
initiated and forced by channel curvature
Free bars: migrating,
initiated by perturbation that grows
(=unstable)
Braid bar types
Note misleading banklines:
now all these bars seem forced!
yet many braid bars are free
20/51
Damping and exciting bars (1)
Bar types:
forced bars: forced by flow curvature; static
position
free bars: spontaneously develop and
migrate;
initiated at perturbation (groyne, bend, tree)
Analogy:
spring-mass-damper
damper can also excite
21/51
Three regimes forced (alternating) bars
Overdamped
Underdamped
Excited
22/51
Narrow channel alternating bars
w/h = 24
Q = 2,500 m/s
Alternating bars
Free migrating bars
T
im
e

(
M
o
n
t
h
s
)
X-coordinate (m)
25/51
Bar theory forced bars (3)
from theory:
(just accept thisfull derivation in Struiksma
et al.!)
bar damping length L
D
bar length L
p
26/51
Bar theory forced bars (4)
so, most important parameter (spring-damper!) is
Interaction Parameter:
s
/
w
IP depends mostly on W/h
and a bit on friction and on the slope effect f()
( )
2
2
2
2

=
h
W
C
g
f
w
s

27/51
Underdamping overshoot!
Struiksma et al (1985)
28/51
Damping/exciting bars
overdamped
just forced bars in
reaction to curvature
underdamped
overshoot
superimposed on
forced bars
unstable, exciting
free bars grow
spatially
damping length
negative
29/51 30/51
Bend flow
conservation of momentum AND
logarithmical flow velocity profile
helical (spiral) flow
bed shear stress directed towards inner
bend
inner-bend bar
main flow forced towards outer-bend
transverse movement of momentum
and net transverse flow velocity
31/51
Bend flow (2)
with:
s: longitudinal coordinate
n: transverse coordinate
v: velocity (u for us)
z: elevation,
s
: surface,
b
: bed
h: depth
R: bend radius
Koen
Blanckaert
Meandering??
Old theories and handbooks:
spiral / helical flow
Engineering since 1980s:
bar instability modified by helical flow
33/51
Transverse slope effect
for infinite long bend analytical solution
Gravity acts on particles on transverse
slope
particles pulled towards outer-bank
counteracts spiral flow
Shear stress vs sediment vector
Transverse bed slope effect
Bar height
Bar length
Migration rate
36/51
Wider channels: braid bars
Narrow channel
Wide channel: stability of higher wave
modes
mode m=2, etc.!
Transverse bed slope effect
Transverse bed slope effect
Braid bar morphology 3D fine grid
Bar tails
Confluence scour
Unit bars
Compound bars
Cross-bar channels
Tributary mouth bars
Bridge (1993)
Bed level Deposition/erosion Sed. transport
Subsurface Subsurface + bed level + flow field
Bars
formation
positive feedback: nonlinear sed transport
negative feedback: transverse bed slope effect
modification: spiral flow
pattern:
width-to-depth ratio of channel
forced vs free bars
dynamics:
migration
sedimentation, bank erosion
bifurcation at bar, chute cutoff through bar
Open questions
bar shape and dynamics (stratification)
for different D and h?
(and for different environments)
bar stabilisation?
when chute cutoffs (bifurcations)?
...