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Generalized Sediment Transport Library System (SEDLIB)

Published by the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers, St. Joseph, Michigan www.asabe.org

Citation:  Soil Erosion Research Under a Changing Climate, January 8-13, 2023, Aguadilla, Puerto Rico, USA  .(doi:10.13031/soil.23505)
Authors:   Gary L. Brown
Keywords:   Bedload, Hydrodynamic models, Numerical models, Suspended load.

Abstract

Sediment transport is an inherently complex phenomenon. Many of the fundamental process descriptions that govern sediment transport are still debated in the scientific community, and are the subjects of active research. Hence, sediment transport models must be both robust and adaptable if they are to be useful to practicing engineers and researchers alike. To this end, a sediment transport library (SEDLIB) has been developed. This library is designed to be linked to any hydrodynamic and transport numerical model, with a minimal amount of work. The fundamental components of the library are entirely general, and accommodate a wide range of cohesive, cohesionless, and mixed sediment classes. The process descriptions that govern the behavior of these sediments are linked to the library as peripheral entities, which can be easily modified or supplemented in order to adapt to the most recent research and understanding.

SEDLIB was developed and is maintained at the Engineer Research and Development Center, Coastal and Hydraulics Laboratory (Brown, 2012a, b). It is capable of solving problems consisting of multiple grain sizes, cohesive and cohesionless sediment types, and multiple layers. It calculates erosion and deposition processes simultaneously, and simulates such bed processes as armoring, consolidation, and discrete depositional strata evolution.

The SEDLIB library is designed to be fully modular. All of its calculations are performed locally, and it does not store any model information. Hence, it is agnostic to the numerical scheme of the hydrodynamic and transport code to which is it attached. Both bedload and suspended load are treated as advection/diffusion processes, with vertical fluxes of sediment computed in SEDLIB as local sources and sinks. Hence, there is no need to exchange spatial gradient information with the hydrodynamic and transport code, which is unavoidably dependent on the specific numerical scheme of the model.

SEDLIB receives hydrodynamic data and stored sediment data from the code to which it is attached. It then computes sediment sources and sinks, and updates the bed sediment information and the bed elevation. This information is passed back to the hydrodynamic and transport code, where it is stored and utilized for the next set of transport calculations. The process repeats for each computational time step.

An overview of the basics of SEDLIB is given in this presentation, together with a demonstration of a linked AdH (Adaptive Hydraulics) and SEDLIB simulation of a typical large sand-bed river reach.

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