Fully coupled 1D model of mobile-bed alluvial hydraulics: application to silt transport in the Lower Yellow River

To further improve the representation of the flow-sediment-morphology interactions, a fully coupled model approach has been naturally chosen. In this work the terminology fully coupled means that the three equations forming the system are solved synchronously and that the terms often neglected by more traditional decoupled models are kept.

The feasibility of the new closure methodology has been drawn up by reproducing numerically the silt-flushing experiment conducted by the Yellow River Conservancy Commission (Y.R.C.C.) in the Lower Yellow River (LYR) in Northern China. The objective of the silt flushing experiment is to reverse the aggradation trend of the Lower Yellow River which, in the last decades, has become a perched river. The numerical simulation specifically reproduces the silt-flush effects in a reach of LYR located in the meandering part of the river. This reach (around 100 km) is delimited by Aishan and Luokou hydrometric stations.

Since the SVRD formulation has been developed from flume observations, the law has first been confronted to river datasets. The confrontation has revealed that the SVRD law becomes less suitable for fine sediment fluxes (ratio of water depth over median particle size > 5000). Therefore, a modified equation SVRD-2 has been built to enlarge the validity range.

The suitability of the SVRD-2 equation to predict fine sediment fluxes has been tested on data available from several hydrometric stations located in the meandering reach of the LYR: historical observations and measures collected during the flushes. The SVRD-2 has also been compared with relations specifically calibrated for this configuration. The comparison has pointed out that the performance of the two formulas is similar, which is encouraging for the SVRD-2 approach as it has not been calibrated on those data.

The closed equation system has been written on its quasi-linear form and is solved by a Finite Volume Method combined with a linearized Riemann algorithm. The numerical model has been checked up on two test cases: deposition upstream of a dam and the aggradation experiment conducted by Soni 1975.

As it is not yet possible to predict dynamically the value of the control factor m, a possible solution would be to extract its value from the measured data at the inlet cross section. Unfortunately, the necessary data are not measured locally. Moreover, a uniform value of the control factor m may not suffice to reproduce the flow along the whole reach. Therefore, it has been proposed to work temporarily in the reverse way.

From the comparison between the numerical results and the experimental data, a time evolution of the control factor m has effectively been extracted and it has been shown that it varies along the reach. At Aishan, the evolution of the control factor m corresponds to the evolution expected from the data analysis previously conducted on other data sets: the value of the control factor m decreases during the flush as it tries to reach the optimal value m=1. The time evolution at Luokou behaves differently to the one at Aishan, but remains in agreement with m evolution patterns observed historically for the river section flowing round Jinan City walls. For Luokou, the highlighted differences may come from three dimensional effects coming from the meander bend upstream the station.

Generally, the results obtained for the hydraulics, the sediment transport and bed adaptation are encouraging but still need improvements and additional feeding from the experimental data. The results for the concentration and therefore the bed elevation are very sensitive to the value of the control factor m as it influences most of the terms of the bed material load equation (SVRD-2).

The major remaining difficulties are, firstly, to deal with the rapid transients for which the model is less suitable and, secondly, to improve the prediction of the value of control factor m. Before paying more attention into the transients, enhancements concerning the flow along the reach (initial condition and discharge rates during the first days of the flush) must be conducted in priority. Indeed as the prediction of the bed or the cross section evolutions depend directly on the quality of the prediction of the sediment concentration and the hydraulics, one should first improve these aspects. To perform this study, more information about the water levels or sediment concentrations is necessary at some intermediate stations. One solution is to lengthen the studied reach, upstream to Sunkou and downstream to Lijin, totaling a river length of 456 Km.

A more entire signal of the energy slopes and the associated bed configurations at different stations would enlighten how the control factor m evolves along the reach during the silt-flush events.