Stochastic Simulation of the Suspended Sediment Deposition in the
Channel with Vegetation and Its Relevance to Turbulent Kinetic Energy
Abstract
The aquatic vegetation patch plays a significant role on sediment net
deposition in the vegetated channels. Particularly, the flow is
decelerated at the leading edge of a patch that tends to induce vertical
updraft, that is, a diverging flow region, in which vegetation greatly
affects the pattern of sediment net deposition. This study focuses on
the simulation of the sediment net deposition in the whole vegetation
patch region through an innovative random displacement model, a Lagrange
method, with a probability-based boundary condition instead of the
reflection or sorption boundary at the channel bottom. The probability
model of deposition and resuspension is proposed according to the flow
field characteristics in the different regions of the vegetation patch.
The variation of the sediment deposition and resuspension with the
turbulent kinetic energy is analyzed to illustrate the effect of the
turbulence induced by vegetation, represented by the dimensionless
turbulent kinetic energy (ψ), on the sediment deposition and
resuspension. The sediment deposition predicted by the proposed model
agrees well with the experimental measurements. Results show that the
effect of vegetation on the sediment deposition and resuspension motions
begins to prevail when the vegetation-induced ψ is larger than its
threshold, ψ *. Although the experimental data are limited, the
threshold of ψ is predicted to be within 6.8 to 10 according to the
simulation results. As the turbulent kinetic energy increases, the
deposition probability decreases continuously when ψ>ψ *.