Description:
These experiments were performed at the Penn Sediment Dynamics Laboratory at the University of Pennsylvania from November 2012 - July 2013. The goal of the experiments was to study bed load transport at the particle scale, to understand dynamics of:
- Particle interactions / collisions
- Entrainment / distrainment
- Statistics particle trajectories, including path lengths and waiting times
- Bed surface evolution
All of the experiments were performed with a steady water feed and particle flux. We used a bidisperse grain size mixture with a 1:1 number ratio of particles. Particle diameters were X mm and X mm for small and large beads, respectively. Particles were fed into the flume by a customized particle feeder, which is described on the equipment page. We tracked bed evolution and waiting times by use of time-lapse photography on the sidewall of the flume.
| Experiment name | Particle feed rate (beads/minute) | Time lapse photo rate (photos/minute) |
|---|---|---|
| S12 | 12 | 30 |
| S30 | 30 | 6 |
| S60 | 60 | 12 |
| S90 | 90 | 30 |
| S120 | 120 | 30 |
Image:
Attribution:
Martin RL, Purohit PK, Jerolmack DJ (2014). Sedimentary bed evolution as a mean-reverting random walk: implications for tracer dispersion (in press, Geophysical Research Letters), doi: 10.1002/2014GL060525