5% - eTheses Repository - University of Birmingham

activities to the special problems involved in bed-particle
dynamics.
GOALS
The project will entail experimental and computational
investigations of the basic mechanisms involved in particle
capture, transport and settling motions in the vicinity of
defined bed forms. Three stages to the work are envisaged, as
follows.
Firstly, idealised small-scale studies will be executed in
Birmingham, initially with particles on beds of fixed, sharp
crested, geometries. Trajectory imaging and local flow
measurements will be the main objective here, to identify
precisely the role of vortex shedding and reattachment in the
engagement and escape of individual particles. The aim will be
to establish experimental conditions which can be realistically
represented in detailed computational simulations of these
unsteady events, using methods which have already been
successfully used to diagnose previously unexplained phenomena
in bubbly vortex flows. When the underlying structure has been
properly characterised in this detailed fashion, we plan to
develop both aspects of the project as follows.
Secondly, on the experimental side, we shall extend the work
using mobile beds to gauge the effects of evolving crest shapes
and mass loading by suspended material on the transport capacity
A2-2