Computational River Dynamics

PREFACE Rivers, as part of the nature, have been a focus of human activities since the beginning of civilization. Through engineering practices, such as flood control, water supply, irrigation, drainage, channel design, river regulation, navigation improvement, power generation, environment enhancement, and aquatic habitat protection, humans have come to understand more about rivers and established basic principles and analytical methodologies for river engineering. With the help of computation and information techniques, numerical modeling of flow and sediment transport in rivers has improved greatly in recent decades and been applied widely as a major research tool in solving river engineering problems. These advances motivated me to write this book on the physical principles, numerical methods, and engineering applications of computational river dynamics. Most of the topics included in this book have been the central theme of my research work. I developed a simple 1-D quasi-steady sediment transport model for my bachelor's degree in 1986, a width-averaged 2-D unsteady open-channel flow model in my master's thesis in 1988, and an integrated 1-D and depth-averaged 2-D sediment transport model under quasi-steady flow conditions in my Ph.D. dissertation in 1991 at the Department of River Engineering, Wuhan University of Hydraulic and Electric Engineering, China. In 1995-1997, I established a 3-D sediment transport model at the Institute for Hydromechanics, University of Karlsruhe, supported by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, Germany. Since 1997, I have revisited 1-D and 2-D models and developed a 1-D channel network model and a depth-averaged 2-D model for unsteady flow and non-uniform sediment transport at the National Center for Computational Hydroscience and Engineering, University of Mississippi, USA, through a Specific Research Agreement between the USDA Agricultural Research Service and the University of Mississippi. I have also reviewed sediment transport theories, established several sediment transport formulas, and developed models for dam-break fluvial processes, vegetation effects, cohesive sediment transport, and contaminant transport. All these model developments and studies contributed to this book. This book is intended primarily as a reference book for river scientists and engineers. It is also useful for professionals in hydraulic, environmental, agricultural, and geological engineering. It can be used as a textbook for civil engineering students at the graduate level. My fascination with river engineering and computational river dynamics began with my first supervisor, Prof. Jianheng Xie. Later I learned a great deal about turbulence models and computational techniques in CFD from Prof. Wolfgang Rodi. I also would like to acknowledge Prof. Sam S.Y. Wang for his long-term support and encouragement. I am greatly indebted to these three scientists.Wu, Weiming is the author of 'Computational River Dynamics', published 2007 under ISBN 9780415449601 and ISBN 041544960X.