Stream power criterion and design of sand bed channels at incipient motion

Abstract

The critical stream power criterion may be used to describe the incipient motion of cohesionless particles of plane sediment beds. The governing equation relating “critical stream power” to “shear Reynolds number” is developed by using the present experimental data as well as the data from several other sources. Simultaneously, a resistance equation, relating the “particle Reynolds number to the “shear Reynolds number” is developed for plane sediment beds in wide channels with little or no transport. By making use of these relations, a procedure is developed to design plane sediment beds such that any two of the four design variables, including particle size, energy/friction slope, flow depth, and discharge per unit width in the channel should be known to predict the remaining two variables. Finally, a straightforward design procedure using design tables/design curves and analytical methods is presented to solve six possible design problems.

Keywords:

• Alluvial channel
• canal design
• incipient motion
• open-channel
• resistance equation
• sediment transport
• stream power