Haramaya Institute of Technology, School of Graduate Studies
CHAPTER THREE
SEDIMENT TRANSPORT
Whenever water flows in a channel (natural or artificial), it tries to scour its surface. Silt or gravel or
even larger boulders are detached from the bed or sides of the channel. These detached particles are
swept downstream by the moving water. This phenomenon is known as Sediment Transport.
3.1. Importance of Sediment Transport
i. The phenomenon of sediment transport causes large scale scouring and siltation of irrigation canals,
thereby increasing their maintenance. Many poorly designed artificial channels get silted up so
badly, that they soon become inoperable, causing huge economic loss to the public exchequer. The
artificial channels should, therefore, be properly designed, and should not fail to carry the sediment
load admitted at the canal works.
ii. The design and execution of a flood control scheme is chiefly governed by the flood levels, which,
in turn, depend upon the scour and deposition of sediment. Firstly, the bed levels may change by
direct scouring or deposition of sediment, and thereby changing the flood levels. Secondly, the
scouring and silting on the river banks may create sharp and irregular curves, which increase the
flow resistance of the channel, thereby, raising the flood levels for the same discharge.
iii. Silting of reservoirs and rivers is another important aspect of sediment transport. The storage
capacity of the reservoir is reduced by its silting, thereby, reducing and life. Natural rivers used for
navigation are frequently silted up, reducing the depth (draft) required for navigation. Sediment
deposited in these rivers and harbours may often require costly dredgings.
Sediment transport, thus, poses numerous problems, and is a subject of great importance, and
possesses enough potential for further research and development.
3.2. Sediment Load
The sediment in a canal is a burden to be borne by the flowing water, and is, therefore, designated as
sediment load.
Reservoir Planning & Sedimentation (EngH611) Lecture Note Page 1
Haramaya Institute of Technology, School of Graduate Studies
Bed Load and Suspended Load. The sediment may move in water either as bed or as suspended
load. Bed load is that in which the sediment moves along the bed occasional jumps into the channel.
While, the suspended load is the one in which the material is maintained in suspension due to the
turbulence of the flowing water.
3.3. Bed formation (Practical Aspect)
The channel bed may be distorted into various shapes by the moving water, depending upon the
discharge or the velocity of the water.
At low velocities, the bed does not move at all, but it goes on assuming different shapes as the
velocity increases. Let us see what happens to a channel bed made of fine sand (lesser than 2mm dia)
when the velocity is gradually increased in steps.
When the velocity is gradually increased, then first of all, a stage is reached, when the sediment load
comes just at the point of motion. This stage is known as threshold stage of motion. On further
increase of velocity, the bed develops ripples of the saw-tooth type, as shown in Fig. 1.1 (a). Such
ripples can also be seen in sand on any beach. As the velocity is increased further, larger periodic
irregularities appear, and are called Dunes. When they first appear, ripples are superimposed on them
[Fig. 1.1 (b)]. But at still higher velocities, the ripples disappear and only the dunes are left [Fig. 1. I
(c)]. Dunes may form in any grain size of sediment, but ripples do not occur if the size of the particles
is courser than 0.6mm. Dunes are much larger (in length and height) and more rounded than ripples.
So much so that ripples seldom exceed 40 cm in length (between two adjacent troughs) and 4 cm in
height (trough to crest), while the dunes in flumes may have 3m length and height up to about 40 cm,
while in large may be as high as 15 metres, with several hundred metres length. Crests of both do not
extend across the entire width of the stream, i.e., both formations tend to form of “short crested
waves". The flow conditions remain sub-critical in both these regimes. While most of the sediment
particles move along the bed, some finer sediment may go in suspension.
Reservoir Planning & Sedimentation (EngH611) Lecture Note Page 2
Haramaya Institute of Technology, School of Graduate Studies
When velocity is increased beyond formation of dunes, the dunes are erased by flow, leaving very
small undulations or virtually a flat surface with sediment particle in motion [Fig. 3.1 (d)]. Further
increase in velocity, results in the formation of sand wave in association with surface waves [Fig. 1.1
(e)]. As the velocity is further increased, so as to make the Froude number . ., exceeding
√
unity, the flow becomes supercritical, and the surface become so steep that they break intermittent
over upstream, although the sediment particles keep on moving downstream only [Fig (f)]. Sand
Waves are then called anti-dunes, since the direction of move forms in this regime is opposite to that
of the dunes. The sediment transport rate in this regime is obviously very high. The resistance to flow
is, however, small compared to that of the ripple and dune regime. In case of canals and natural
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Haramaya Institute of Technology, School of Graduate Studies
streams, ant-dunes rarely occur.
3.4. Mechanics of Sediment Transport
In the study of mechanics of sediment transport, we will throughout assume that the soil is incoherent.
By incoherent soil, we mean that there are no cohesive forces between " or in other words c = 0, such
as in sands or gravels.
Most of our river beds are made of our river beds are made up of sands and gravels, and hence, we
confine ourselves to the mechanism of movement of such a soil only. Though cohesive clays,)
sometimes met with, but no systematic study upon such soils has been undertaken and very little work
has been done in that direction.
By assuming the soil to be incoherent, each soil grain can be studied individually. The basic
mechanism behind transport is the drag force exerted by water (or fluid) in the direction of flow, on
the channel bed. This force, which is nothing but a pull of water on the wetted area, is known as
Tractive Force or shear Force or Drag Force.
Let us consider a channel of length L and cross-section area A.
The volume of water stored in this channel reach = AL
Wt. of water stored in this channel reach =
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Haramaya Institute of Technology, School of Graduate Studies
Where = . = , where = ℎ The horizontal
component of this weight= =
Where S = channel bed slope,
This horizontal force exerted by water is nothing but Tractive force.
Average tractive force per unit of wetted area
=Unit tractive force ( ) =
= = = = (∴ = )
×
Where R= is the hydraulic mean depth of channel
S= channel bed slope
γw= unit weight of water
P = wetted perimeter
Hence, Average unit tractive force, also called shear stress
= =
I t may be noted that the unit tractive force in channels, is not uniformly distributed along the wetted
perimeter. A typical distribution of shear stress (unit-tractive force) on a trapezoidal channel section is
shown in the above figure.
Before entering in to the mathematical aspect of sediment transport, we will again visualize the “threshold
movement of the sediment”, and its application for design of non-scouring channels.
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Haramaya Institute of Technology, School of Graduate Studies
3.4.1. Threshold Motion of the Sediment. When the velocity of flow through a channel is very small,
the channel bed does not move at all, the channel behaves as a rigid boundary channel. As the flow
velocity increases steadily, a stage is reached when the shear force opposing their movement. At this
stage, a few particles on the bed will just start moving intermittently. This condition is called the
incipient motion condition or simply the critical condition or the threshold point.
A knowledge of the velocity at which such critical condition occurs is quite helpful in designing stable
non-scouring channel admitting clear waters, since this velocity will help us in fixing the hydraulic mean
depth (R) and bed slope (So) of the channel. The knowledge of this incipient motion condition is also
required in some of the method adopted for comparison of sediment load.
Reservoir Planning & Sedimentation (EngH611) Lecture Note Page 6
