Experimental study on bank erosion and protection using submerged vane placed at an optimum angle in a 180° laboratory channel bend

Unsteadiness of the vertical velocity profile and secondary flow in open channel bends poses serious problems in hydraulic engineering design. Insertion of vertical submerged vanes in the channel bend at an optimum angle with the tangential component of flow can minimize the unsteadiness and generation of secondary flow resulting in the reduction of scour depth at the outer bank. A series of experiments were conducted in a 180° bend laboratory channel to study flow erosion and effective ness of the submerged vane in reducing scour depth. The average approach to flow velocity at 0.20 m flow depth above the lowest initial bed level was 25 cm/s. An Acoustic Doppler Velocimeter (ADV) was used to measure the three-dimensional time-averaged velocity components at different azimuthal sections on stabilized nonscoured beds without vane. Scour bed profile without vanes shows that bank erosion in a 180° parabolic-shaped bed channel occurs mostly at the zone from bend angles 120° to 140°. Vanes were installed at angles of 10°, 15°, 20°, 30°, and 40° to the tangential flow component maintaining a spacingof 75 cm distance from one vane to another. Experimental results show that a 15° vane angle produces best result in reducing outer bank scour in a parabolic-shaped channel. The data presented in this paper can also be used for validating three-dimensional turbulence models for simulating flows in a curved channel.