Unsteady turbulence in expansion waves in rivers and estuaries: an experimental study

A sudden decrease in water depth, called a negative surge or expansion wave, is characterised by a gentle change in free-surface elevation. Some geophysical applications include the ebb tide flow in macro-tidal estuaries, the rundown of swash waters and the retreating waters after maximum tsunami runup in a river channel. The upstream propagation of expansion waves against an initially steady flow was investigated in laboratory under controlled flow conditions including detailed free-surface velocity and Reynolds stress measurements. Both non-intrusive free-surface measurements and intrusive velocity measurements were conducted for relatively large Reynolds numbers with two types of bed roughness. The data showed that the propagation of expansion waves appeared to be a relatively smooth lowering to the water surface. The wave leading edge celerity data showed a characteristic trend, with a rapid acceleration immediately following the surge generation, followed by a deceleration of the leading edge surge towards an asymptotical value: (U + Vo)/(g × do) = 1 for both smooth and rough bed experiments. The results indicated that the bed roughness had little to no effect, within the experimental flow conditions. Relatively large fluctuations in free-surface elevation, velocity and turbulent shear stress were recorded beneath the leading edge of the negative surge for all flow conditions. The instantaneous turbulent shear stress levels were significantly larger than the critical shear stress for sediment erosion. The present results implied a substantial bed erosion during an expansion wave motion.