Hydraulic Roughness

Irrigation practitioners use empirical infiltration equations. Theoretical infiltration equations are currently not capable of capturing surface irrigation infiltration behavior, particularly during initial wetting. For a coarse textured soil, an example is shown where the Green-...

Herein, a phenomenological theory that unifies the flow resistance caused by a variety of submerged bluff bodies, including cylindrical vegetation, two-dimensional dunes and the roughness elements studied in Schlichting's 1936 experiments, is presented. For the different flow obstructions, scaling relations that relate the equivalent roughness length to the obstructions’ spatial dimensions are derived, by adopting the concepts of the turbulent energy cascade and the momentum thickness in the wake of a bluff body. In the derivation, it is hypothesized that the equivalent roughness height represents the volumetric average of the prevailing turbulence length scale that is present in wakes of the roughness elements. A comparison with experimental literature data indicates that the derived scaling relations capture the dominant dependencies of the equivalent roughness length. These expressions have important engineering applications in large-scale flows where employment of more detailed flow-modelling techniques is not feasible.

In this study, the characteristics of near-bed turbulence were experimentally investigated for three distinct roughness regimes, namely (1) isolated;(2) wake interference; and (3) skimming. Spherical particles of the same size and density were placed upon a rough sediment bed to simulate the three regimes. Experimental runs for the aforementioned regimes were performed in a tilting water-recirculating flume. Flow measurements atop the spherical particles were performed by means of a 3D laser Doppler velocimeter. The aim ...