compound channel
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Abstract The computation of the boundary shear stress distribution in an open channel flow is required for a variety of applications, including the flow resistance relationship and the construction of stable channels. The river breaches the main channel and spills across the floodplain during overbank flow conditions on both sides. Due to the momentum shift between the primary channel and adjacent floodplains, the flow structure in such compound channels becomes complicated. This has a profound impact on the shear stress distribution in the floodplain and main channel subsections. In addition, agriculture and development activities have occurred in floodplain parts of a river system. As a consequence, the geometry of the floodplain changes over the length of the flow, resulting in a converging compound channel. Traditional formulas, which rely heavily on empirical approaches, are ineffective in predicting shear force distribution with high precision. As a result, innovative and precise approaches are still in great demand. The boundary shear force carried by floodplains is estimated by gene expression programming (GEP) in this paper. In terms of non-dimensional geometric and flow variables, a novel equation is constructed to forecast boundary shear force distribution. The proposed GEP-based method is found to be best when compared to conventional methods. The findings indicate that the predicted percentage shear force carried by floodplains determined using GEP is in good agreement with the experimental data compared to the conventional formulas (R2 = 0.96 and RMSE = 3.395 for the training data and R2 = 0.95 and RMSE = 4.022 for the testing data).

An experimental study was conducted to measure the heat transfer and pressure drop in a rectangular channel emphasizing a compound structure to improve the cooling performance of gas turbine blades. W shaped, semicircular, and multi semicircular shaped ribs with dimples are studied and applied to a lower surface of a channel. The experiment was carried out at a Reynolds number ranging from 10,000 to 32,000 and the ratio of pitch (P) to height (e) of the rib was 10. Also, the ratio of rib height (e) to channel hydraulic diameter (Dh) was 0.187  and the dimple depth (δ) to dimple diameter (D) ratio was 0.2. It was observed that the combination of ribs and dimple channel (compound channel) has an average of 23 %  more heat transfer than the ribbed channel. W rib compound channel shows the highest thermal performance and enhanced up to 30 % more heat transfer than semi and multi-semicircular compound channel. friction rise was observed in the compound channel compared to the ribbed channel.

There are no studies specifically aimed at characterizing and quantifying drag forces on finite cylinder arrays in the mixing layer of compound channel flows. Addressing this research gap, the current study is aimed at characterizing experimentally drag forces and drag coefficients on a square-cylinder array placed near the main-channel/floodplain interface, where a mixing layer develops. Testing conditions comprise two values of relative submergence of the floodplain and similar ranges of Froude and bulk Reynolds numbers. Time-averaged hydrodynamic drag forces are calculated from an integral analysis: the Reynolds-averaged integral momentum (RAIM) conservation equations are applied to a control volume to compute the drag force, with all other terms in the RAIM equations directly estimated from velocity or depth measurements. This investigation revealed that, for both tested conditions, the values of the array-averaged drag coefficient are smaller than those of cylinders in tandem or side by side. It is argued that momentum exchanges between the flow in the main channel and the flow in front of the array contributes to reduce the pressure difference on cylinders closer to the interface. The observed drag reduction does not scale with the normalized shear rate or the relative submersion. It is proposed that the value of the drag coefficient is inversely proportional to a Reynolds number based on the velocity difference between the main-channel and the array and on cylinder spacing.