Mobile bed thickness in skewed asymmetric oscillatory sheet flows

A new instantaneous mobile bed thickness model is presented for sediment transport in skewed asymmetric oscillatory sheet flows. The proposed model includes a basic bed load part and a suspended load part related to the Shields parameter, and takes into account the effects of mass conservation, phase-lag, and asymmetric boundary layer development, which are important in skewed asymmetric flows but usually absent in classical models. The proposed model is validated by erosion depth and sheet flow layer thickness data in both steady and unsteady flows, and applied to a new instantaneous sediment transport rate formula. With higher accuracy than classical empirical models in steady flows, the new formula can also be used for instantaneous sediment transport rate prediction in skewed asymmetric oscillatory sheet flows.