Environmental protection stability of river bed and banks using convex, concave, and linear bed sills

Abstract

River bed scourings are a major environmental problem for fish and aquatic habitat resources. In this study, to prevent river bed and banks from scouring, different types of bed sills including convex, concave and linear patterns were installed in a movable channel bed in a laboratory flume. The bed sills were tested with nine different arrangements and under different flow conditions. To find the most effective bed sill pattern, the scouring depth was measured downstream of the bed sill for a long experimental duration. The scour depth was measured at the middle and at the end of each experimental test for different ratios of the arch radius to the channel width (r/\emphw). The experimental results indicated that the convex pattern with r/\emphw=0.35 produced minimum bed scouring depth at the center line whereas the concave pattern with r/\emphw=0.23 produced the minimum scour depth at the wall banks. Therefore, the convex pattern was the most effective configuration for prevention of scouring at the center line of the river while the concave pattern was very effective to prevent scouring at the river banks. These findings can be suggested to be used in practical applications.