Unsteady sediment transport law and prediction of aggradation parameters

A general law for unsteady sediment transport in the form of a differential equation has been established. This law has been tested against the sediment transport rates obtained in the laboratory during aggradation arising from an increase in sediment supply over and above the equilibrium sediment transport capacity of the channel. Using the law, expressions for predicting the maximum depth of aggradation and length of aggradation under the above stated boundary conditions have been obtained. The agreement between values of the parameters computed from these expressions, when compared with the values observed in the laboratory and with the values obtained from the numerical model of Gessler, is very good.