Rheological Properties and Incipient Motion of Cohesive Sediment in the Haihe Estuary of China

The Haihe cohesive sediment, which is typical in China, is studied systematically for its basic physical and incipientmotion properties. Following the requirements of dredging works in the Haihe Estuary, cohesive sediment samples weretaken from three locations. Laboratory experiments were conducted to determine the rheological properties of these sam-ples and to examine the incipient motion of the cohesive sediment. It is found that the cohesive sediment has an obviousyield stress τb, which increases with the mud density in a manner of an exponential function, and so does the viscosityparameter η. The cohesive sediment behaves like a Bingham fluid when its density is below 1.38 ～ 1.40 g/cm3, andwhen denser than these values, it may become a power-law fluid. The incipient motion experiment also revealed that theincipient velocity of the cohesive sediment increases with the density in an exponential manner. Therefore, the incipientmotion is primarily related to the density, which is different from the case for non-cohesive sediment in which the incipi-ent motion is correlated with the diameter of sand particles instead. The incipient motion occurs in two different ways de-pending on the concentration of mud in the bottom. For sufficiently fine particles and a concentration lower than1.20 g/cm3, the cohesive sediment appears as fluidized mud, and the incipient motion is in the form of instability of aninternal wave. For a higher concentration, the cohesive sediment appears as general quasi-solid-mud, and the incipientmotion can be described by a series of extended Shields curves each with a different porosity for newly deposited alluvial mud.     

A Numerical Study on Wave-Mud Interaction

1 .Introduction The dynamics of soft mud under surface water waves is of great importance to the sedimentationprocesses in approach channels and harbors ,and has long been drawing attention. Advancements innumerous engineering applications inthe shallowco…     

Mass Transport in a Thin Layer of Bi-Viscous Mud Under Surface Waves

The mass transport in a thin layer of non-Newtonian bed mud under surface waves is examined with a two-fluid Stokes boundary layer model. The mud is assumed to be a bi-viscous fluid, which tends to resist motion for small-applied stresses, but flows readily when the yield stress is exceeded. Asymptotic expansions suitable for shallow lluid layers are applied, and the second-order solutions for the mass transport induced by surface progressive waves are obtained numeri-cally. It is found that the stronger the non-Newtonian behavior of the mud, the more pronounced intermittency of the flow. Consequently, the mass transport velocity is diminished in magnitude, and can even become negative (i. e. , oppo-site to wave propagation) for a certain range of yield stress.     

A Numerical Study on Water Waves Generated by a A Submerged Moving Body in a A Two-Llayer Fluid System

This is a numerical study on the time development of surface waves generated by a submerged body moving steadily in a two-layer fluid system, in which a layer of water is underlain by a layer of viscous mud. The fully nonlinear Navier–Stokes equations are solved on FLUENT with the Volume-of-Fluid (VOF) multiphase scheme in order to simulate the free surface waves as well as the water–mud interface waves as functions of time. The numerical model is validated by mimicking a reported experiment in a one-layer system before it is applied to a two-layer system. It is found that the presence of bottom mud in a water layer can lead to large viscous damping of the surface waves. To investigate the problem systematically, the effects of the Froude number and the mud layer thickness, density and viscosity relative to those of water are evaluated and discussed in detail.     

Rheological Properties and Incipient Motion of Cohesive Sediment in the Haine Estuary of China

The Haihe cohesive sediment, which is typical in China, is studied systematically for its basic physical and incipient motion properties. Following the requirements of dredging works in the Haihe Estuary, cohesive sediment samples were taken from three locations. Laboratory experiments were conducted to delermine the rheological properties of these samples and to examine the incipient motion of the cohesive sediment. it is found that the cohesive sediment has an obvious yield stress τb, which increases with the mud density in a manner of an exponential function, and so does the viscosity parameter η. The cohesive sediment behaves like a Bingham fluid when its density is below 1. 38 - 1 .40 g/cm3 , and when denser than these values, it may become a power-law fluid. The incipient motion experiment also revealed that the incipient velocity of the cohesive sediment increases with the density in an exponential manner. Therefore, the incipient motion is primarily related to the density, which is different f