Print Email Facebook Twitter Modeling the interaction between flow and highly flexible aquatic vegetation Title Modeling the interaction between flow and highly flexible aquatic vegetation Author Dijkstra, J.T. Uittenbogaard, R.E. Faculty Civil Engineering and Geosciences Department Hydraulic Engineering Date 2010-12-18 Abstract Aquatic vegetation has an important role in estuaries and rivers by acting as bed stabilizer, filter, food source and nursing area. However, macrophyte populations worldwide are under high anthropogenic pressure. Protection and restoration efforts will benefit from more insight into the interaction between vegetation, currents, waves and sediment transport. Most aquatic plants are very flexible, implying that their shape and hence their drag and turbulence production depend on the flow conditions. We have developed a numerical simulation model that describes this dynamic interaction between very flexible vegetation and a time-varying flow, using the seagrass Zostera marina as an example. The model consists of two parts: an existing 1DV k-? turbulence model simulating the flow combined with a new model simulating the bending of the plants, based on a force balance that takes account of both vegetation position and buoyancy. We validated this model using observations of positions of flexible plastic strips and of the forces they are subjected to, as well as hydrodynamic measurements. The model predicts important properties like the forces on plants, flow velocity profiles and turbulence characteristics well. Although the validation data are limited, the results are sufficiently encouraging to consider our model to be of generic value in studying flow processes in fields of flexible vegetation. Subject flexible aquatic vegetationseagrassturbulencedrag coefficient measurementsmodelling To reference this document use: http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:2a71de36-6ce8-447b-b031-5ba4eb877422 DOI https://doi.org/10.1029/2010WR009246 Publisher American Geophysical Union Embargo date 2011-06-01 ISSN 0043-1397 Source Water Resources Research, 46, 2010 Part of collection Institutional Repository Document type journal article Rights (c) 2011 Dijkstra, J.T.Uittenbogaard, R.E.American Geophysical Union Files PDF Dijkstra_2011.pdf 436.07 KB Close viewer /islandora/object/uuid:2a71de36-6ce8-447b-b031-5ba4eb877422/datastream/OBJ/view