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On the cause and characteristic scales of meandering and braiding in rivers

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 April 2006

Gary Parker
Gary Parker
Affiliation:
Department of Civil Engineering, The University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada T6G 2G7
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Abstract

A stability analysis of meandering and braiding perturbations in a model alluvial river is described. A perturbation technique, involving a small parameter representing the ratio of sediment transport to water transport, is used to obtain the following results.

Under appropriate conditions, the existence of sediment transport and friction are necessary conditions for the occurrence of instability in the flow and on the bed; thus instability is not inherent in the flow alone. An Anderson-type scale relation for longitudinal instability is obtained for meandering. A relation estimating the number of braids and differentiating between meandering and braided regimes is derived. These relations are independent of sediment transport.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Fluid Mechanics , Volume 76 , Issue 3 , 11 August 1976 , pp. 457 - 480
Copyright
© 1976 Cambridge University Press

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