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Motion of turbid density currents laden fine solid particles, released on sloping bed and under still bodies of clear water, are numerically investigated. The equations of mass, momentum and diffusion for unsteady, laminar flow are solved at the same time in the fixed Cartesian directions, on a non-staggered grid using finite volume scheme. The velocity-pressure coupling is handled by SIMPLEC method. Turbidity currents with uniform velocity and concentration enter the channel via a sluice gate into a lighter ambient fluid and move forward down-slope. At the front of this flow, a vortex forms and grows while moving downstream. Comparison of the computed height of turbidity current with the... 

The present study investigates the turbulence characteristic of turbidity current experimentally. The three-dimensional Acoustic-Doppler Velocimeter (ADV) was used to measure the instantaneous velocity and characteristics of the turbulent flow. The experiments were conducted in a three-dimensional channel for different discharge flows, concentrations, and bed slopes. Results are expressed at various distances from the inlet, for all flow rates, slopes and concentrations as the distribution of turbulence energy, Reynolds stress and the turbulent intensity. It was concluded that the maximum turbulence intensity happens in both the interface and near the wall. Also, it was observed that the... 

Dense underflows are continuous currents, which move down the slope due to the fact that, their density are heavier than ambient water. In turbidity currents the density differences arises from suspended solids. Vicinity of the wall make density currents and wall jets similar in some sense but Variation of density cause this flows more complex than wall jets. An improved form of 'near-wall' k-ε turbulence model is chosen which preserve all characteristics of both density and wall jet currents and a compression is made between them. Then the outcomes from low Reynolds number k-ε model is compared with v2̄-f model which show similarity. Also results show good agreement with experimental data... 

The effects of an obstacle on the suspended load transport rate of supercritical turbidity currents were investigated experimentally. A Vectrino velocity meter was used to measure velocity and sediment concentration profiles. The effects of important parameters including inlet discharge, mean inlet sediment concentration and obstacle height on suspended load transport rate were investigated. In the upstream velocity profiles, the obstacle generates the reflected and the interface regions in addition to the wall and the jet regions. The average amount of suspended load transport rate downstream of the obstacle decreases to about 92%. This confirms the depositional behaviour of turbidity... 

Pressure filters are popular in small municipal water treatment plants. One of the principles for designing and using the various units of water treatment plants is the ability of assigning and predicting the performance of those units under different and various conditions that could be verified by making pilot scale tests and could be modeled by means of available programs and software such as artificial neural network. The goals of this study that was conducted to predict pressure filter efficiency are: (1) evaluations of pressure filter efficiency for turbidity removal under different conditions such as turbidity of raw water, filtration rate and filter pressure changes; (2) statistical... 

In water treatment processes, because of complicated and nonlinear relationships between a number of physical, chemical and operational parameters, using analytical models with the ability to capture underlying relationships using examples of the desired input-output mapping is quite suitable. Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) has been increasingly applied in the area of environmental and water resources engineering. The main advantage of Artificial Neural Networks over physical-based models is that they are data-driven. The purpose of this research is to study the performance of pressure filters on turbidity removal from water according to several parameters such as turbidity, filtration... 

Low density turbidity currents have been investigated in a laboratory flume. An Acoustic Doppler Velocimeter (ADV) was used to measure the velocity. The dimensionless velocity profiles were compared with previous studies to check the accuracy of acoustic measuring techniques for turbidity currents. Successful use of the ADV to measure the current velocity has led to interest in the technique of using acoustic sensors to estimate concentrations. Acoustic backscattering analyses are used for estimating the sediment concentration in turbidity currents. With this approach, concentration measurements can be reasonably well represented by a similarity profile. Using this technique, an accurate... 

Flows generated by density differences are called gravity or density currents which are generic features of many environmental flows. These currents are classified as the conservative and non-conservative flows whether the buoyancy flux is conserved or changed respectively. In this paper, a low Reynolds k-ε turbulence model is used to simulate three dimensional density and turbidity currents. Also, a series of experiments were conducted in a straight channel to study the characteristics of the non-conservative density current. In experiments, Kaolin was used as the suspended material. Comparisons are made between conservative and non-conservative's height, concentration and velocity profiles... 

An experimental study has been conducted to investigate the effect of silica nanoparticle halos on the stability of the zirconia aqueous suspension. The results of turbidity measurements showed that addition of nanoparticles to the suspension increases the stability of the zirconia suspension for all pH values. The achieved stability refers to the formation of nanoparticle halos around the microparticles that can be observed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) imaging. The best stabilization is achievable when zirconia microparticles are at the isoelectric point. The minimum stabilization occurs when microparticles have relatively high zeta potential and the force between micro and... 

Turbidity currents are responsible for much of the sedimentation in reservoirs. In order to control these flows, various methods such as placing an obstacle in their path have been proposed. In this study, the effect of inlet sediment concentration and obstacle height on the behaviour of turbidity currents is investigated experimentally. For this purpose, some experiments were carried out with different inlet concentrations and various obstacle heights. Velocity and concentration profiles were measured using an acoustic Doppler velocimeter. To examine the depositional behaviour of turbidity current, suspended sediment flux was calculated using velocity and concentration profiles of the... 

Turbidity currents are one of the more frequently observed types of stratified flows. In these currents, the density difference is created as a result of suspended particles. The interfacial instability of turbidity current is studied experimentally in the present research. Both Kelvin–Helmholtz and (asymmetric) Holmboe instabilities are observed during the experiments; the first one was downstream, and the second one was upstream of the obstacle. Kelvin–Helmholtz instability is observed by approximately zero (phase) speed with respect to the mean flow. With the aim of measuring spectral distribution of velocity fluctuations, the effects of some parameters are studied on interfacial waves;... 

In this research, we present the results of applying simulated annealing (SA) which is a heuristic optimization algorithm for focusing light through a turbid media. The performance of this algorithm on both phase optimization and amplitude optimization has been demonstrated. A guideline to set up the SA parameters is also suggested. The performance of SA algorithm in different levels of measurement noise has been also explored. The results showed that the SA algorithm performs effectively in measurement noises as high as 0.3(I0). © COPYRIGHT SPIE. Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only  

The gravity currents on the inclined boundaries are formed when the inflow fluid has a density difference with the ambient fluid and a tangential component of gravity becomes the driving force. If the density difference arises from the suspended particles, the currents are known as particle-laden density currents, or turbidity currents in which the local density depends on the concentration of particles. A low Reynolds k- Turbulent model is used to simulate three dimensional turbidity currents. Also some laboratory tests were conducted to study the 3D flow resulting from the release of particle laden density currents on a sloping surface in a channel of freshwater via a sluice gate. Kaolin... 

The development of density or turbidity currents causes serious problems for environmental hydraulics in reservoirs. The stream entered to a reservoir can carry sediments, nutrients and chemicals as density or turbidity currents. The fate of sediment and other substances transported by the current depends on the characteristics of the turbidity current itself, i.e. the velocity of fluid, the amount of mixing with reservoir water and the rates of sediment deposition and resuspension. These are important factors for water quality in reservoirs. A two-dimensional, depth-averaged, finite-volume numerical model is developed to study density currents, driven by non-cohesive sediments. The model... 

There is a need to find cheaper and simpler techniques for rural water filtration system in developing countries. Using a filter made of blocks for the water treatment enables one to make vertical filters. It is expected that the amount of land utilized would decrease by more than 70 % if vertical filters were used. The operation and washing would be simpler than using horizontal sand filters as filters made of blocks would be used instead. The feasibility study focused on finding adequate materials, compositions and methods of making a block with enough resistance to water pressure, sufficient porosity for water transformation, and using inexpensive, readily available materials. A pilot... 

Dense underflows are continuous currents which move down-slope due to the fact that their density is heavier than that ambient water. In this work, 2-D and 3-D density current in a channel were investigated by a set of experimental studies and the data were used to simulate the density current. The velocity components were measured using Acoustic Doppler Velocimetry (ADV). The height of density current (current's depth) was also measured. In this study, the density current with a uniform velocity and concentration enters the channel via a sluice gate into a lighter ambient fluid and moves forward down-slope. A low-Reynolds number turbulent model (Launder and Sharma, 1974) has been applied to... 

Dense underflows are continuous currents, which move down the slope due to the fact that, their density are heavier than ambient water. In turbidity currents the density differences arises from suspended solids. Vicinity of the wall make density currents and wall jets similar in some sense but Variation of density cause this flows more complex than wall jets. An improved form of 'near-wall' k-ε turbulence model is chosen which preserve all characteristics of both density and wall jet currents and a compression is made between them. Then the outcomes from low Reynolds number k-ε model is compared with v̄2 - f model which show similarity. Also results show good agreement with experimental data... 

The structure of turbidity currents released on a sloping bed below fresh water is investigated. Kaolin is used as a suspended material. Laboratory observations indicate that if a dense layer moves through the channel, the current thickness increases due to a hydraulic jump. This phenomenon occurs under special inlet conditions and has a significant effect on the current structure including velocity profile, current height and bed shear stress. Flows with different inlet Froude numbers based on various inlet concentrations behave more distinctly than those based on different inlet opening heights. Laboratory experiments indicate that an increase in the inlet Froude number causes an increase...