Experimental open-channel flow study of sand transport processes involving energetic suspension & bedload transport modes

This project aims to improve our understanding of sediment transport during high-energy flow events, which are responsible for most natural sediment fluxes and play a key role in erosion and morphological change. Despite major advances in two-phase CFD models, progress is limited by the lack of experimental datasets with turbulence-resolved measurements. The French–Swiss project 2phase-SEDEXP addresses this gap by developing a tilting flume facility and an advanced experimental protocol using high-resolution ultrasound ACVP instrumentation. Through controlled sediment-laden flow experiments with fine and medium sands, the project will produce new datasets on bedload and suspended transport, turbulent kinetic energy budgets, and coherent flow structures, to be directly compared with state-of-the-art numerical simulations.