Lecture Notes for Fluvial Sediment Transport

Here are all the notes for class. Things to bear in mind—I do update these, so if there are issues, please let me know. Second, if you’re here from somewhere else, please feel free to look at how I organize this class, but please don’t take the notes and put them up somewhere else. They take a lot of time to put together! Last, this class is based on one I took from Catherine Petroff at the University of Washington in 1993; thanks, Catherine, for a great class.

Introduction

Lecture 1—Introduction to fluvial sediment transport

Fluid Mechanics

Lecture 2—An introduction to hydraulics

Lecture 3—Friction

Lecture 4—Turbulence

Lecture 5—The law of the wall

Lecture 6—The Laminar Sublayer

Lecture 7—Friction factors

Lecture 8—Specific head

Sediments

Lecture 9—Describing sediment

Lecture 10—Properties of Sediment Populations

Lecture 11—Introduction to Settling Velocity

Lecture 12—Sensitivity Analysis and Settling Velocity

Lecture 12a—A Brief Example

Lecture 13—Sensitivity Analysis Revisited

Lecture 14—Dimensional Analysis

Lecture 15—Dimensional Analysis Revisited

Lecture 16—Dimensional Analysis and Settling Velocity

Sediment Transport

Lecture 17—Initiation of Motion

Lecture 18—Low R_* and High R_* Initiation of Motion

Lecture 18a—Slope Effects on Initiation of Motion

Lecture 19—Bedforms and Bedform Stability Diagrams

Lecture 20—Some Loose Ends

Lecture 20a—The Exner Equation

Lecture 21—Suspended Sediment Transport

Lecture 22—Introduction to Bed Load

Lecture 23—Bedforms and Bedload

Lecture 24—Probability Bed Load Equations

Lecture 25—Stream Power and Bed Load

Lecture 26—Dimensional Analysis and Bed Load

Lecture 27—An aside on hyperconcentrated flows

Lab Lectures

Lecture A—Measuring Flow Discharge

Lecture B—Measuring Sediment

Lecture C—Measuring Suspended Sediment

Lecture D—Measuring Bedload