Forecast of Stabilized Channel Transformations in Prismatic River Channels

Abstract

The perfection of nature in its simplicity and harmony. It is revealed in the process of her cognition. A striking example of harmony is the relationship between a river flow and its bed. In one area the stream begins to wash away the river bed, in another the washed away soil is deposited. In both cases, over time, the processes practically die out and a long-term equilibrium is restored. The work considers the problem of predicting river bed transformations at the stage of their stabilization. The goal is to determine the slope of the transformed bed, which has a prismatic shape. It is noted that between the transit zone and the sediment deposition zone there is a “critical section” of the river, where the turbidity of the flow reaches its maximum value and there is no erosion of the river bed or sedimentation. The parameters of this section have an important influence on the process of stabilization occurring in the river. The slope of the new bed of the channel after stabilization of the process was determined by two analytical methods. In the first case, the sediment balance equation uses a number of formulas for sediment consumption. In the second case, this slope is established by analyzing the equation describing the period of stabilization river bed transformations. The research results show that after stabilization of river bed transformations in the prismatic section of the river, a new slope is established that is quite close to the slope of the “critical section”.