Turbulent flow structure at concordant and discordant open-channel confluences

Models of flow at river-channel confluences that consist of two concordant confluent channels with avalanche faces dipping into a scour zone are limited because this morphology may be the exception rather than the rule in nature. In this paper the mean and turbulent flow structure in the streamwise and vertical directions at both concordant and discordant laboratory confluences were examined in order to determine the effect of bed discordance on the flow field, and to assess its influence on sediment transport. Instantaneous velocities were measured with a laser Doppler anemometer using a dense spatial sampling grid. The spatial distribution of normal stress varies with bed geometry as bed discordance generates a distortion of the mixing layer between the confluent streams. Turbulent shear stress is larger in the discordant bed case and its peak is associated with the position of the mixing layer whereas for concordant beds the zone of mixing is characterised by a decrease in the Reynolds shear stress. Quadrant analysis also revealed differential dominating quadrants between the two bed geometries which will influence sediment transport routing and, consequently, the resulting bed morphology. These results highlight the need for significant modifications to current models of confluence flow dynamics in order to account for the bed configuration.We would like to thank Phil Fields of the Earth Sciences workshop at Leeds for his skillful construction of the confluence model and continued help during the course of this research. The LDA facility has been funded through grants from the UFC, NERC and University of Leeds. PB thanks NSERC for financial support and the Fonds FCAR for funding an eight month study-visit held at the Department of Earth Sciences, University of Leeds. AGR acknowledges the financial support of NSERC whilst JLB is grateful for the award of a Nuffield Science Foundation Fellowship which facilitated the preparation of this paper. We thank two anonymous reviewers for their constructive criticisms that helped clarifying the paper.