Appl. Math. Mech. -Engl. Ed.

, 37(3), 341348 (2016)

DOI 10.1007/s10483-016-2035-6
Applied Mathematics
c
Shanghai University and Springer-Verlag
and Mechanics
Berlin Heidelberg 2016 (English Edition)

Flow characteristics of rectangular open channels with compound

vegetation roughness

Yuhong ZENG , Wenxin HUAI, Mingdeng ZHAO

State Key Laboratory of Water Resources and Hydropower Engineering Science,
Wuhan University, Wuhan 430072, China

Abstract An idealized parallel flow caused by a lateral bed roughness difference due to
the partial vegetation across a channel is investigated. Similar to the flow in a compound
channel, there are mixing layers adjacent to the interface between the vegetation and
the non-vegetation lanes, and a lateral momentum exchange occurs between the slow-
moving water in the former lane and the fast-moving water in the latter lane. Under a
uniform flow condition, the three-dimensional (3D) instantaneous velocities of two cases
with different discharges and water depths are measured with a 16 MHz acoustic Doppler
velocimeter (micro ADV). The longitudinal variation of the streamwise velocity and the
vertical variation of the Reynolds stress are analyzed. A quadrant analysis is carried
out to investigate the outward and inward interaction, ejection, and sweep phenomenon
caused by the vegetation variation across the channel. The results show that the flow
characteristics in the vegetation lane are similar to those in an open channel fully covered
with submerged vegetation, and the flow characteristics in the smooth non-vegetation
lane are similar to those in a free open channel. For the cases studied here, the width of
the mixing region is about 10% of the channel width, and the mixing region is mainly on
the non-vegetation half.
Key words vegetated flow, lateral momentum exchange, acoustic Doppler velocimeter
(ADV), mixing layer, quadrant analysis
Chinese Library Classification TV133
2010 Mathematics Subject Classification 76F25

1 Introduction

Vegetation is an important component for natural rivers. Aquatic vegetation can affect the
flow characteristics together with the channel geometry and the bed composition[1] . Nowa-
days, humans have clearly realized that aquatic vegetation can effectively benefit the ecological
restoration, and thus have selectively planted more vegetation into rivers, lakes, and ponds to
improve the water quality and the surrounding environments. Vegetation can grow homoge-
neously, but more often is found to grow heterogeneously. For example, vegetation gaps or
patches are very common in natural channels[2] . Sometimes, vegetation may uniformly cover

Received Mar. 12, 2015 / Revised Aug. 13, 2015

Project supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 51379154, 51479145,
and 51439007) and the Program for New Century Excellent Talents in University of China
(No. NCET-11-0393)
Corresponding author, E-mail: yhzeng@whu.edu.cn
342 Yuhong ZENG, Wenxin HUAI, and Mingdeng ZHAO

half of the channel bed, such as riparian vegetation and vegetated flood plain. Under this sit-
uation, the variation of the vegetation across the lateral direction of the channel can cause two
flow lanes, which we idealize as a parallel flow here.
The most well-known parallel flow occurs in compound channels. With a varied water depth
across the channel, there is a fast moving flow in the deeper main channel and a slow moving
flow in the shallower flood plain, and the velocity difference can generate mixing layers ad-
jacent to the interface between the main channel and the flood plain[3] . In the past years, a
large amount of researches have been focused on the flow characteristics of compound channels.
Tominaga and Nezu[4] investigated the secondary flow in compound channels, and discussed its
effects on the momentum transfer and boundary shear stress. Wang and Cheng[5] investigated
the secondary flows generated by longitudinal bedforms, and presented an analytical descrip-
tion for different patterns of the secondary flow structures. Spooner and Shiono[6] measured
the velocity and boundary shear stress of a meandering overbank flow. Shiono and Feng[7]
conducted experiments in both rectangular and compound channels to investigate the effects of
the secondary flow on solute mixing. Van Prooijen et al.[8] adopted the eddy viscosity concept
to analyze the momentum exchange between the flood plain and the main channel, and pointed
out that the lateral momentum transfer was mainly caused by the horizontal coherent vortex
and the bottom turbulence, and the effect of the secondary effect could be neglected.
To investigate the lateral transfer of the streamwise momentum caused by different bed
compositions, Vermaas et al.[9] conducted laboratory experiments in a rectangular channel,
half of which was covered by a homogeneous layer of stone with D50 = 7.6 mm, and the other
half was covered by polished wooden plates so as to create a smooth bed. After comparing the
effects of the turbulent mixing, secondary current, and horizontal coherent vortex on the lateral
transfer of the streamwise momentum, they concluded that when the water depth was small,
the turbulent mixing was the main factor for the lateral momentum exchange, while when the
water depth was large, the secondary current was the dominate factor.
For the parallel flow caused by the lateral vegetation roughness, Darby[10] presented a modi-
fied hydraulic model to predict the stage-discharge curves for the channels with riparian vegeta-
tion based on the momentum and continuity equations accounting for the lateral shear. White
and Nepf[11] analyzed the two-layer-structure of the open channel partially covered with emer-
gent vegetation, and observed that the coherent vortices spanned both the flow layers, which
were the dominant contributors to the lateral momentum fluxes. Pasche and Rouve[12] inves-
tigated the flow in a compound channel with vegetation on the flood plain, and predicted the
flow resistance via some basic flow parameters. However, in their study, the vegetation in one
of the lanes was at its upper extreme, which inhibited the vertical circulation. In this paper,
the characteristics of the parallel flows caused by a lateral bed roughness difference due to the
partial submerged vegetation across the channel are experimentally and theoretically studied.

2 Experimental setup

2.1 Flume setup

The experiments are conducted in a straight and rectangular flume constructed in the Hy-
draulic Laboratory of Wuhan University. The glass recirculating flume is 0.6 m wide (B) and
20 m long, and the bed slope is fixed as 0.2%. Water is pumped from an underground reservoir
to a 20 m high water tank, and then overflows into the flume through a wave suppressor. The
discharge is recorded by an electric magnetic valve with an accuracy of 0.1 Ls1 , and the water
surface is adjusted by a tail-gate to keep the flow uniform. The widths of the vegetation half
and smooth bed half are both 0.3 m. The plastic artificial grass with an average height of 4.5 cm
is covered on the vegetation half (see Fig. 1), which consists of four branches, and the diameter
of each branch with six leaves is about 1 mm. The grass are positioned in a parallel pattern
with a density m = 2 000 stems per m2 .
 Flow characteristics of rectangular open channels 343

Fig. 1 Experimental setup

2.2 Velocity measurement

The instaneous 3D flow velocities are measured by a 16 MHz acoustic Doppler velocimeter
(micro ADV) system equipped with an upward probe and a downward probe. The velocity
data are recorded at 50 Hz for 2 minuets at every position, which means that 6 000 data are
collected. The ADV measurements range from 0.005 m beneath the water surface to 0.005 m
above the channel bottom.
Shiono and Knight[13] pointed out that the misalignment of the ADV could cause an error
in the velocity measurement. Therefore, during the measurement, the appropriate alignment of
the ADV is very important, and the x-direction is defined according to the direction of the time-
and space-averaged velocity vectors in a cross section with the uniform flow. The measurement
uncertainty cannot be avoided because of the Doppler noise, the finite measurement volume,
and the limited accuracy in solving the Doppler phase shift[14] . To avoid the measurements
with poor correlations, a tiny particle solution is added to improve the measurement accuracy.
2.3 Experimental cases
Two turbulent flow cases are investigated (see Table 1), where the Reynolds number Re is
defined by
Re = U R/,
and the Froude number F r is defined by
p
F r = u/ gH.

In the above equations, U is the cross-sectional averaged velocity, R is the hydraulic radius, and
is the kinematic viscosity of water. The Froude numbers F r are 0.17 and 0.21, corresponding
to the discharges Q 20 Ls1 and 30 Ls1 , respectively, and the corresponding water depths H
are 16 cm and 18 cm, respectively.

Table 1 Parameters of experimental cases

Case Q/(L s1 ) H/cm Re Fr U/(cm s1 )
A1 20.0 16.0 217 23 0.17 20.8
A2 30.0 18.0 312 66 0.21 27.8

Six cross sections (x = 0.6 m, 0.2 m, 1.5 m, 2.5 m, 5.5 m, 10.5 m) are selected (see Fig. 2).
On each cross section, seven vertical lines are measured. The vertical measuring intervals are
set to be within the range from 1 cm to 5 cm. For the zones near the channel bottom and the
water surface, a finer interval 0.5 cm is adopted.
344 Yuhong ZENG, Wenxin HUAI, and Mingdeng ZHAO

Fig. 2 Measuring arrangement

3 Results

3.1 Streamwise variation of longitudinal velocity

Figure 3 shows the vertical profile of the streamwise velocity u of Case A1 at Line CS-0. The
flow is approximately uniform along the lateral direction, and its distribution nearly conforms
to a logarithmic law. For most open channel flows, the horizontal maximum velocity occurs at
the center of the channel, but here it does not. The velocity on the vegetation side is much
larger than that on the non-vegetation side, and it is evident that the vegetation started from
x = 0 has effects on the upstream flow (x = 0.6 m). Limited by the measuring device, here we
have not measured the velocity at the water surface, but we can conclude from the measurement
that the velocity begins to decrease at some point below the water surface. This shows that
the maximum velocity always occurs at a point below the water surface.

Fig. 3 Vertical profile of streamwise velocity at Line CS-0

Figure 4 presents the longitudinal development of u on the vegetation lane (y = 15 cm) and
the non-vegetation lane (y = 45 cm). The vegetation retards the flow, and parts of the current
are pushed into the non-vegetation half, making the streamwise velocity become larger and
larger on the non-vegetation half while become smaller and smaller on the vegetation half. At
Line CS-4, the velocity distribution is almost constant, indicating that the flow can be regarded
as fully developed. The vertical profile on the vegetation looks similar to that over submerged
vegetation. There is a typical exchange zone at the vegetation top (z = 4.5 cm) and a classic
wake zone under z = 3 cm.
 Flow characteristics of rectangular open channels 345

Fig. 4 Vertical profile of longitudinal velocity u

3.2 Lateral variation of depth-averaged longitudinal velocity

According to van Prooijen et al.[8] , the width of the mixing layer is defined as two times
of the distance between y25% , where the depth-averaged streamwise velocity
huiy=y25% = huir + 0.25(huis huir ),
and y75% , where the depth-averaged streamwise velocity
huiy=y75% = huir + 0.75(huis huir ),
or = 2(y75% y25% ). The depth-averaged streamwise velocity is defined by
1 H
Z
hui = udz.
H 0
huir is the depth-averaged streamwise velocity on the rough vegetation side, and huis is the
depth averaged streamwise velocity on the smooth non-vegetation side.
For Line CS-4 of Case A1, is estimated as 7.0 cm. From Fig. 5, we can see that the mixing
layer is located on the non-vegetation side. Similarly, for Case A2 is estimated as 7.4 cm, and
is located on the non-vegetation side too. It means that the secondary circulation playing a
role in the mixing layer spreads over the non-vegetation side, which agrees with the research of
Vermass et al.[9] who concluded that the secondary circulation caused by the lateral roughness
transition across the channel was mainly located on the smooth side. Here, the aspect ratio
(B/H) is small (3.75 for Case A1 and 3.33 for Case A2). Therefore, the effects of the side
wall cannot be ignored. In other words, the mixing layer is the result of the joint action of the
secondary currents caused by the side wall and the roughness variation across the channel.

Fig. 5 Lateral variation of depth-averaged longitudinal velocity hui for Line CS-4 of Case A1
346 Yuhong ZENG, Wenxin HUAI, and Mingdeng ZHAO

3.3 Vertical variation of Reynolds stress

The Reynolds stress (u w ) of Case A1 at Line CS-4 is plotted in Fig. 6. It can be seen that,
on the vegetation bed (y = 15 cm), the maximum value appears at the top of the vegetation,
which is similar to the flow over submerged vegetation. On the non-vegetation bed (y =
45 cm), the location of the maximum value of the Reynolds stress is close to the channel bottom
(under 2 cm), and it is much smaller than that on the vegetation half, which indicates that the
turbulence caused by the vegetation is much stronger than that caused by the channel bottom
roughness.

Fig. 6 Vertical variations of Reynolds stress for Case A1

3.4 Turbulent characteristics

Under the combined action of the turbulence and lateral shear caused by the bottom vegeta-
tion, large coherent structures occur around the interface between the vegetation lane and the
non-vegetation lane, which has larger length and time scales than those of the bottom induced
turbulence (see Refs. [8] and [15]). As Fig. 4 shows, there is an exchange zone around the vege-
tation top. We use the measured data for Case A1 at z = 4 cm (y = 15 cm) for the analysis, and
plot the result in Fig. 7 (both signals have been smoothed by a one-second moving average).
The time series of the streamwise and the product of the streamwise and transverse velocity
fluctuations show large scale motion with small scale fluctuation. The streamwise velocity oscil-
lates strongly at a frequency approximately 0.14 Hz, which is close to the result 0.11 Hz obtained
by Ghisalberti and Nepf[16] for an exchange zone of a flexible experimental canopy. The dif-
ference proves that the motion of the vortices can be affected by the vegetation rigidity, density,

Fig. 7 Time series of streamwise velocity (u, dashed line) and vertical momentum transport per unit
area per unit fluid density (u w , solid line) for Line CS-3 of Case A1, where y = 15 cm, and
z = 4 cm
 Flow characteristics of rectangular open channels 347

water depth, etc. In the time series of turbulent momentum transport, a sweep (u > 0, w < 0)
is followed by an ejection (u < 0, w > 0) such that the momentum transport oscillates as twice
of the vortex frequency (0.28 Hz). As mentioned above, there is an exchange zone around the
vegetation canopy, and the vertical transport is dominated by the highly structured coherent
vortices[16].
To elucidate the impact of vegetation on the turbulence structure, a quadrant analysis is
performed to investigate the contribution of the outward interaction (Q1, u > 0, and w > 0),
the inward interaction (Q3, u < 0, and w < 0), the ejection (Q2, u < 0, and w > 0), and
the sweep (Q4, u > 0, and w < 0) to the Reynolds stress. Figure 8 shows the Reynolds stress
acting on the interface between the vegetation lane and the non-vegetation lane for Case A1.
At the entrance of the parallel flow (Line CS-0 in Fig. 8), the four actions are almost the same
along the water depth, and the comparative ejection action is the most obvious. At Line CS-4,
the sweep action is the dominant under the vegetation, and it achieves its maximum at the
top of the vegetation. Above the vegetation top, the ejection action is the dominant. This
phenomenon is similar to that investigated by Ghisalberti and Nepf[16] in the open channels
with submerged vegetation. Moreover, one can find that around z = 4.5 cm, there is a swing
around the vegetation height which may be caused by the waving motion of plants under the
action of the streamwise velocity oscillation and the inherent spatial variation of the vegetation.

Fig. 8 Stress contribution from four quadrants

4 Conclusions

In this paper, an idealized parallel flow caused by partially submerged vegetation across
a channel is investigated experimentally. For the vegetated lane, the vertical distributions
of the longitudinal velocity and the Reynolds stress are similar to those in a channel fully
covered by submerged vegetation. A quadrant analysis shows that: under the vegetation, the
sweep action is the dominant, and achieves its maximum at the top of the vegetation; while
above the vegetation top, the ejection action is the dominant. On the non-vegetation lane, the
vertical profile of the streamwise velocity approximately conforms to the logarithmic law, and
the vertical distributions of the longitudinal velocity and the Reynolds stress are similar to those
of a free open channel flow. The mixing layer is located on the non-vegetation lane, and its
width is larger than 10% of the channel width, which shows that the effect of vegetation is the
dominant compared with the bed roughness. Here, only a qualitative analysis has been made
on the characteristics of the parallel flow caused by the lateral vegetation roughness variation,
and a quantitative analysis will be conducted to reveal the mechanism of the lateral momentum
exchange in the future.
348 Yuhong ZENG, Wenxin HUAI, and Mingdeng ZHAO

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