Investigations of Continuous Bed Load Saltating Process

Particle saltating motions during bed load transport are dominated by the forces acting upon particles and the random process of the particles impacting on and rebounding from the channel bed. A real-time flow visualization technique is developed in this study to measure particle saltating trajectories, corresponding velocities, and impacting and rebounding angles. Based on the experimental data, regression equations for the dimensionless saltating length, height, and velocity were obtained. A numerical model that is able to simulate the continuous saltating process of a single particle was developed. The model was calibrated and verified with the experimental data, and the results were satisfactory. The model was also used to generate a series of synthetic data. Based on these data and the flume data collected by previous investigators, a bed load equation was derived.