Publications related to Sedimentary structures

Continuous monitoring of morphological changes from sediment augmentation by field measurements and flume experiments

In this study, we present results from continuous field monitoring and a flume ex-periment of a sediment augmentation measure in a residual flow reach of the Swiss midlands. A straight morphological channel with fixed bed material was constructed to repres ...

2023

Elongated hydraulic fracture emerging from layers of alternating fracture toughness

Brice Tanguy Alphonse Lecampion, Carlo Peruzzo

Whether used to enhance the hydrocarbon production from low permeability rocks or to measure the minimum in-situ principal stress in rock formations, height growth of a hydraulic fracture above the formation of interest is a key metric for the design of su ...

2023

The clogging of riverbeds: A review of the physical processes

Giovanni De Cesare, Romain Maxime Dubuis

Fine sediment represents an important part of the solid flux of rivers. Due to the size of these particles, they are often transported as suspended load. They gradually fill the pores of the substrate forming the hyporheic zone or cover the substrate by se ...

2023

Experimental study on velocity distributions, secondary currents, and coherent structures in open channel flow with submerged riparian vegetation

Haoran Shi

Riparian vegetation, which is commonly found in natural rivers and open channels, has a strong influence on flow structures. This paper describes a laboratory experiment on velocity distributions, secondary currents, and coherent structures in narrow open- ...

ELSEVIER SCI LTD2023

Reduction of riverbed clogging related to sediment flushing

Giovanni De Cesare, Romain Maxime Dubuis

The ecological effects of dams on sediment and river flow have been subject to an increasing attention, leading to the implementation of mitigation measures such as environmental flow release and sediment replenishment. However, fine sediment dynamics have ...

CRC Press/Balkema2023

Do Antidune Trains Undergo Morphological Changes When These Bedforms Migrate Upstream?

Christophe Ancey, Ivan Pascal

Upstream migrating antidunes develop in streams under supercritical flow conditions. These bedforms are often organised in trains (i.e. sequences of well-developed antidunes). In shallow flows over coarse sediments, the dynamics of a single antidune can be ...

Madrid2022

Experimental Study on Bedload Transport and Bedforms: Behaviour and Interplay in Steep Turbulent Streams

Ivan Pascal

In mountain regions, steep streams play an important role in water and sediment connectivity. In these highly dynamic systems, water flow features, sediment fluxes and stream morphologies are tightly interlinked over a broad range of temporal and spatial s ...

EPFL2022

Influence of collars on reduction in scour depth at two piers in a tandem configuration

Anton Schleiss, Giovanni De Cesare, Sargol Memar

Bridge failure, due to local scour at bridge pier foundations, has become a critical issue in river and bridge engineering, which might lead to transportation disruption, loss of lives and economic problems. A practical solution to prevent bridge collapses ...

SPRINGER INTERNATIONAL PUBLISHING AG2020

Assessing Subaquatic Mass Movement Hazards: an Integrated Observational and Hydrodynamic Modelling Approach

Alfred Johny Wüest, Damien Bouffard, Nathalie Dubois, Carl Love Mikael Råman Vinnå

High-resolution lake and reservoir bathymetric surveys can pinpoint locations that may experience underwater landslides (subaquatic sedimentary mass movements). These can pose a risk to underwater and shoreline infrastructure. This paper outlines an approa ...

2020

Density-dependent solute transport in a layered hyporheic zone

David Andrew Barry, Mohsen Cheraghi, Qihao Jiang, Jing Xu

Hyporheic exchange is affected by bedform geometry, which induces complex flow paths within the bedform. Additional factors that influence flow and solute transport in the hyporheic zone are layered profile sediments and density-driven flow. This study exp ...

ELSEVIER SCI LTD2020

Propagation of fluid driven fractures in transversely isotropic material

Fatima-Ezzahra Moukhtari

The propagation of fluid driven fractures is used in a number of industrial applications (well stimulation of unconventional reservoirs, development of deep geothermal systems) but also occurs naturally (magmatic dyke intrusion). While the mechanics of hyd ...

EPFL2020

Hypolimnetic oxygen depletion rates in deep lakes: Effects of trophic state and organic matter accumulation

Alfred Johny Wüest, Robert Vincent Schwefel, Beat Mueller

This study investigated the consumption of oxygen (O-2) in 11 European lakes ranging from 48 m to 372 m deep. In lakes less than similar to 100 m deep, the main pathways for O-2 consumption were organic matter (OM) mineralization at the sediment surface an ...

American Society of Limnology and Oceanography2020

Antidunes on steep slopes: variability of wave geometry and migration celerity

Christophe Ancey, Ivan Pascal

As a result of interactions between streamflow andsediment, riverbeds are seldom smooth, but depending onhydraulic and sediment transport conditions, they exhibitbedforms, which grow and migrate over time (upstreamor downstream). Morphology migration may e ...

Heide Friedrich and Karin Bryan2019

Understanding snow bedform formation by adding sintering to a cellular automata model

Varun Sharma, Michael Lehning, Louise Braud

Cellular-automata-based modelling for simulating snow bedforms and snow deposition is introduced in this study. The well-known ReSCAL model, previously used for sand bedforms, is adapted for this purpose by implementing a simple sintering mechanism. The ef ...

Copernicus GmbH2019

Ecosystem engineers: Biofilms and the ontogeny of glacier floodplain ecosystems

Tom Ian Battin, Jade Brandani, Matteo Roncoroni

The term “ecosystem engineering” emerged in the 1990s and is commonly used to refer to the activities of larger organisms like beavers and trees in rivers and streams. The focus on larger organisms may be motivated by their more visible effects on the envi ...

2019

Preferential Deposition of Snow and Dust Over Hills: Governing Processes and Relevant Scales

Michael Lehning, Marc Parlange, Francesco Comola, Marco Giovanni Giometto

Preferential deposition of snow and dust over complex terrain is responsible for a wide range of environmental processes and accounts for a significant source of uncertainty in the surface mass balances of cold and arid regions. Despite the growing body of ...

2019

Upstream Erosion and Sediment Passage at Piano Key Weirs

Anton Schleiss, Michael Pfister, Ivan Stojnic

Piano key weirs (PKWs) are a weir type characterized by an effective rating curve. Accordingly, this control structure is primarily applied at dams to increase the spillway capacity. In recent years, PKWs also have been implemented in rivers combined with ...

2019

Composition and superposition of alluvial deposits drive macro-biological soil engineering and organic matter dynamics in floodplains

Claire Guenat, Pascal Turberg, Rodolphe Schlaepfer, Renée-Claire Le Bayon, Andreas Cedric Schomburg

Soil structure formation in alluvial soils is a fundamental process in near-natural floodplains. A stable soil structure is essential for many ecosystem services and helps to prevent river bank erosion. Plants and earthworms are successful soil engineering ...

2019

Dynamic anticrack propagation in snow

Johan Alexandre Philippe Gaume

Continuum numerical modeling of dynamic crack propagation has been a great challenge over the past decade. This is particularly the case for anticracks in porous materials, as reported in sedimentary rocks, deep earthquakes, landslides, and snow avalanches ...

Nature Research2018

Morphological resilience to flow fluctuations of fine sediment deposits in bank lateral cavities

Anton Schleiss, Mário Jorge Rodrigues Pereira Da Franca, Carmelo Juez Jiménez, Matthias Thalmann

Lateral cavities are built in the banks of rivers for several purposes: to create harbors, to capture sed- iment, to keep a central navigable channel (i.e., Casiers de Girardon in the Rhone river) or to promote the formation of aquatic habitats if a limite ...

2018