Rheological properties and incipient motion of cohesive sediment in the Haihe Estuary of China

Abstract

The Haihe cohesive sediment, which is typical in China, is studied systematically for its basic physical and incipient motion properties. Following the requirements of dredging works in the Haihe Estuary, cohesive sediment samples were taken from three locations. Laboratory experiments were conducted to determine the rheological properties of these samples and to examine the incipient motion of the cohesive sediment. It is found that the cohesive sediment has an obvious yield stress τb, which increases with the mud density in a manner of an exponential function, and so does the viscosity parameter η. The cohesive sediment behaves like a Bingham fluid when its density is below 1.38 ∼ 1.40 g/cm3, and when denser than these values, it may become a power-law fluid. The incipient motion experiment also revealed that the incipient velocity of the cohesive sediment increases with the density in an exponential manner. Therefore, the incipient motion is primarily related to the density, which is different from the case for non-cohesive sediment in which the incipient motion is correlated with the diameter of sand particles instead. The incipient motion occurs in two different ways depending on the concentration of mud in the bottom. For sufficiently fine particles and a concentration lower than 1.20 g/cm3, the cohesive sediment appears as fluidized mud, and the incipient motion is in the form of instability of an internal wave. For a higher concentration, the cohesive sediment appears as general quasi-solid-mud, and the incipient motion can be described by a series of extended Shields curves each with a different porosity for newly deposited alluvial mud.