Coherent Flow Structures in Open Channels

Book excerpt: Coherent Flow Structures in Open Channels presents the first integrated treatment, across a wide range of spatial and temporal scales, of the origins and characteristics of coherent fluid motions and their influence on sediment transport and bed morphology. This book contains contributions from an international and interdisciplinary authorship who are responsible for many of the recent advances in geophysical boundary layer research. Coherent flow structures are examined systematically across a range of scales from flat-bed boundary layers, grain and bedform roughness generated structures through to the largest scales, where structures may be associated with bars, meander bends and channel confluences. The book is broadly organized according to the spatial scales of coherent flow structures and presents a treatise on the study of these motions from theoretical, experimental and field-based approaches. These papers describe the origins, evolution and characteristics of coherent flow structures and the control which they may impart on sediment transport, both as a bed and suspended load, and ultimately on channel morphology. The book also highlights future research themes required to advance the interdisciplinary understanding of these complex, yet ubiquitous, natural flows. The research presented here will find applications within many fields, including geomorphology, sedimentology, the physical and numerical modelling of two-phase flows, environmental fluid and sediment dynamics and river engineering.