Hydrodynamic of flood in bedrock bend reach: laboratory experiment

Low-slope bedrock meandering rivers widely exist in areas controlled by geological structures (the bed slope is less than 5‰). Flood has a great influence on riverbed sedimentation and erosion in bedrock meandering rivers, however, we have a poor understanding of dynamic structure of flood for bedrock meandering rivers. By geometrically generalizing bedrock meandering reaches, considering the Froude similarity and side wall roughness, a generalized model of a bedrock meandering channel is established in order to analyze the water surface profile distribution, time average flow fields and turbulence structure characteristics for bends under flood. The results show that under the flood flow, the minimum water surface transverse gradient, separation of flow on the convex bank, development of double circulation on the concave bank, velocity-dip-phenomenon and maximum secondary circulation intensity are caused at the upstream of the bend apex, and the maximum water surface transverse gradient and circulation splitting are caused at the downstream of the bend apex; the bed shear stress is distributed in the flow separation area at the convex bank as well as the center of the upstream of the bend apex, and the transverse momentum transport is concentrated at the upstream of the bend apex. The experiment results show an explanation in view of hydrodynamics in respect to bed erosion and sedimentation in bedrock meandering rivers.