Flow velocity profile and turbulence characteristics in a vegetated straight flume

Abstract

Vegetation affects the hydrodynamic conditions of an open channel flow with direct implications in physical and biophysical processes. In this paper, the vertical flow velocity distribution of a vegetated flow has been analyzed using experimental data collected in a straight flume. The experimental velocity distributions are positively compared with the hyperbolic tangent profile of a pure mixing layer previously verified by Ghisalberti and Nepf (2002). Peculiarly, for different flow and vegetative conditions, fitting of the hyperbolic tangent profile to the experimental velocity distributions has allowed the localization of the inflection point of the velocity profile at a distance from the bed always close to the vegetation height. The thickness and the momentum thickness of the mixing layer have been estimated using both the local flow velocity measures and the considered theoretical schematisation.