School of Civil Engineering, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia.
Nielsen (1988) presented a simple “grab and dump” model for sediment transport over ripples, and found its performance in predicting the sediment transport rate was superior to more traditional models for data collected in the small-scale TU Delft flume in the 1970s. While the model performed well for fine sediment (d50=0.125mm), it performed less well for coarse sediment (d50=0.465mm). This presentation will revisit the original “grab and dump” model and will provide an update to accommodate coarser sediments. The theory behind the updated sediment transport model will be presented along with a discussion on how to further improve the model so it can be applied to a larger range of experimental data.