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Program Summary for Fluvial - 12

River channel behavior often needs to be studied for its natural state and response to human regulation. Studies of river hydraulics, sediment transport, and river channel changes may be through physical modeling, or mathematical modeling, or both. Physical modeling has been relied upon traditionally for river projects, but mathematical modeling is becoming more popular as its capabilities expand rapidly. The computer program FLUVIAL-12 is a mathematical model that is formulated and developed for water and sediment routing in natural and man-made channels. The combined effects of flow hydraulics, sediment transport and river channel changes are simulated for a given flow period.

River channels changes simulated by the model include channel bed scour and fill (or aggradation and degradation), width variation, and changes in bed topography induced by the curvature effect. These inter-related changes are coupled in the model for each time step. While this model is for erodible channels, physical constraints, such as bank protection, grade-control structures and bedrock outcroppings, may also be specified. Applications of this model include evaluations of general scour at bridge crossings, sediment delivery, channel responses to sand and gravel mining, channelization, etc. It has been applied to many designs for bank protection and grade-control structures which must extended below the potential channel bed scour and withstand the design flood.

This model is applicable to ephemeral rivers as well as rivers with long-term flow; it has also been tested and calibrated with field data from several rivers, in both semi-arid and humid regions. Because of the transient behavior in dynamic changes, ephemeral rivers require more complicated techniques in model formulation. This model may be used on any main frame computer; it may be used on a personal computer with adequate capacity.

The FLUVIAL-12 model is an erodible-boundary model; it simulated inter-related changes in channel-bed profile, channel width and bed topography induced by the channel curvature. The erodible-boundary model is different from an erodible-bed model in the following ways:

(1) An erodible-bed model does not simulate changes in channel width. Since changes in channel-bed profile is closely related to changes in width, these changes may not be separated.

(2) The change in bed profile in an erodible-bed model is assumed to be uniform in the erodible zone. All points adjust up and down by an equal amount during aggradation and degradation. Actual bed changes are by no means uniform and therefore they may not be simulated by an erodible-bed model.

(3) An erodible-bed model does not consider the channel curvature. In reality, the bed topography is highly non-uniform in a curved channel, especially during a high flow.

(4) The erodible zone needs to be specified at all cross sections in an erodible-bed model. This means the model does not provide the extent of erosion in the channel, but the user has to inform the model about the erodible part of the channel bed. The boundary of erosion is computed and provided by the FLUVIAL-12 model, this boundary changes with the discharge and time.

(5) Sediment inflow into the channel reach needs to be specified for many other models. This requires the sediment rating curve which is usually not available for stream channels. In the FLUVIAL-12 model, the sediment inflow may be specified and it may also be computed based on the hydraulics of flow at the upstream section at every time step.

(6) The FLUVIAL-12 has been calibrated using many sets of river data. An erodible-bed model may not be calibrated with field data of natural streams.