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Analysis of Turbulent Flow Measurements
in a Flume with Induced Upward Seepage
Oscar Herrera-Granados and Stanisław W. Kostecki
1
Introduction
Turbulence is considered one of the most interesting and not completely under-
standable phenomena in environmental sciences. Due to the fact that almost all the
natural streams flow under turbulent regime, it is a necessity in hydraulic research
to analyze many of the roles that turbulence plays in hydrodynamics. Thus, this
chapter is focused on analyzing the influence of seepage flow in the free-surface
hydrodynamics at the laboratory scale. These experimental works were carried out
at the open-air hydraulic laboratory of the Wrocław University of Technology.
River flow is complicated because it depends on many different local condi-
tions and on the interaction with the environment. Therefore, river flow is directly
associated with turbulence, seepage, and sediment transport among other pheno-
mena. The first part of this chapter presents at a glance the theoretical background
of turbulence and its association with seepage (and an example that involves both
seepage and river hydrodynamics). Afterwards, the experimental setup is described
and the statistical analysis of several turbulent flow measurements is presented.
This demonstrates that the presence of this small inflow (around 0.01% of the main
flow) changes the open-channel hydrodynamics. Additionally, the statistical analy-
sis of the flow measurements with and without seepage is compared.
1.1 Seepage and River Hydrodynamics
In rivers and natural streams, where the material of the hyporheic zone is con-
stituted by coarse soils (such as mixtures of gravel and sand), the uppermost layer
of the bed constitutes a porous medium and seepage flow can take place.
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