Author(s): Hong-Wei Fang; Wolfgang Rodi

Linked Author(s):

Keywords: Reservoir; Yangtze river; flow; sediment transport; suspended load; bed-deformation; numerical modelling; model verification

Abstract: The calculation of flow and sediment transport is one of the most important tasks in river engineering. The task is particularly difficult because of the many complex and interacting physical phenomena that need to be accounted for realistically in a model that has predictive power. The threedimensional mathematical model of Wu et al. (2000) is validated without any further calibration by calculating the flow and suspended sediment transport for the reservoir generated by the dam of the Three Gorges Project (TGP) in the Yangtze River. The sedimentation and morphological processes are simulated over a period of 76 years after the dam starts operation, and the results are compared with laboratory measurements obtained by Tsinghua University. Overall, the computational simulations agree well with the experiments and show that the code is a promising tool for natural river predictions. In general, however, some calibration of model parameters, especially for bed roughness, will be necessary.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/00221680309499983

Year: 2003