Volume 50, Issue 6 e70080
RESEARCH ARTICLE

Lagrangian simulation of bedload-sized particle trajectories at a 90° river confluence

Yufang Ni

Corresponding Author

Yufang Ni

Changjiang River Scientific Research Institute, Wuhan, China

State Key Laboratory of Water Resources and Hydropower Engineering Science, Wuhan University, Wuhan, China

Institute of Earth Surface Dynamics (IDYST), University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland

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Gelare Moradi

Gelare Moradi

Institute of Earth Surface Dynamics (IDYST), University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland

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Zhixian Cao

Zhixian Cao

State Key Laboratory of Water Resources and Hydropower Engineering Science, Wuhan University, Wuhan, China

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Stuart N. Lane

Stuart N. Lane

Institute of Earth Surface Dynamics (IDYST), University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland

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First published: 12 May 2025

Funding information: This work was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant No. 12202075, China Scholarship Council under Grant No. 201906270104 and the Knowledge Innovation Program of Wuhan-Basic Research under Grant No. 2022020801010241; as well as by SNSF grant 200021_160020.

Abstract

Whilst confluence hydrodynamics are now very well known, their morphodynamics are less so. This is particularly true for bedload transport, including the trajectories followed by bedload supplied to a confluence by the main channel or the tributary, and their interactions. Field measurement of this phenomenon is currently difficult. Laboratory measurement allows study of gross effects, but not the detailed physics of the process. This paper applies a Lagrangian particle tracking model to a 90° discordant confluence, i.e. where the tributary enters the main channel at a height above the mainstream bed. The model was set up to represent the confluence of the Rhône and Avançon Rivers, Switzerland. The model is based upon a three-dimensional solution of the incompressible Navier-Stokes equations in the open-source toolbox OpenFOAM. It applies a Delayed Detached Eddy Simulation. Particle movement allows for coupled interactions between particles as well as between particles and the stream bed. Results show that as bedload arrives at the tributary mouth, there is size segregation. Some particles from the tributary fall rapidly to the mainstream bed and then travel along the main channel margin to the zone where bank-attached point bars commonly form. Others travel further into the main channel, notably if interactions between particles are allowed. The zone of maximum shear between the joining flows tends to have lower densities of particle tracks. There is sediment sorting at the junction with the very coarsest particles, due to interactions and momentum effects, and the very finest particles, due to greater ease of turbulent suspension, extending further into the main channel.

CONFLICT OF INTEREST STATEMENT

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT

The method of the development of the new solver proposed in this work, as well as the computational settings, was detailed in the Supporting Information, by which the simulation presented in this work can be reproduced. Nevertheless, the source codes of the solver as well as the setting files that support the findings of this study are available on request from the corresponding author.

The full text of this article hosted at iucr.org is unavailable due to technical difficulties.