2018/12/04 by Agustín Millares, Andrea Lira‐Loarca, Millares, Agustín +5
Agricultural and Biological Sciences · Environmental Science · #FOS: Physical sciences #Fluid Dynamics (physics.flu-dyn) #Hydrology and Sediment Transport Processes #Hydrology and Watershed Management Studies #Soil erosion and sediment transport
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1812.01365
openalex publication_date 2018/12/04 · openalex created_date 2022/09/15 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
This manuscript proposes an analytical model and a simple experimental\nmethodology to estimate the effective settling velocity of very fine sediments\nat high concentrations. A system of two coupled ordinary differential equations\nfor the time evolution of the bed height and the suspended sediment\nconcentration is derived from the sediment mass balance equation. The solution\nof the system depends on the settling velocity, which can be then estimated by\nconfronting the solution with the observations from laboratory experiments. The\nexperiments involved measurements of the bed height in time using low-tech\nequipment often available in general physics labs. This methodology is apt for\nintroductory courses of fluids and soil physics and illustrates sediment\ntransport dynamics common in many environmental systems.\n