A physical, movable-bed model for non-uniform sediment transport, fluvial erosion and bank failure in rivers

Sediment transport processes in rivers continue to pose a challenge when designing movable-bed physical models, particularly for reproducing the grain sorting and bank erosion (fluvial erosion and mass failure). This paper presents and discusses scale effects of a specific scaling approach for multi-grain size mixtures that preserves similarity of initial motion for each grain size class and of the bank stability coefficient between the model and the prototype, but relaxes strict similarity of the Shields and particle Reynolds numbers. This approach is appropriate when bed load transport near incipient motion conditions is being studied, and allows for larger grain size scales than when full Shields parameter similarity is enforced. As part of an environmental project to rehabilitate sediment transport through bank erosion, this method has been applied to scale a Froude number criterion physical model of a reach of the Old Rhine (France). This has resulted in an undistorted scale of 40, and the use of sand as the model bank material. Each grain size has a different geometrical scale. The time scale for sediment motion is grain size and flow discharge dependent. An average time scale of 6 has therefore been used (four model hours = one prototype day). A strategy devised for the field case consists of two higher, larger island groynes that replace the three existing groynes, producing bank erosion for flow rates below the mean annual flow rate. Extrapolation of model behaviour to the prototype is not a major problem, but the volume of eroded bank material may be underestimated, mainly because of the relaxation of the Shields number similarity and the apparent cohesive properties of the model bank material.