River water injecting into sea: Movement of sediments in stable stratified flows

Abstract

The study of sediment movement in a stably stratified (each layer is less dense than the one below it) fluid is important for applications such as airborne virus transport, contaminant transport, and sediment settling in river inlets. This project will quantify the effect of sediment-driven instability on the horizontal motion of sediment in a stably stratified fluid. Experiments are designed to analyze this process by adding sediment-rich brine-free water to sediment-free brine, where salinity differences are used to construct stably stratified fluids. The experiments are done with salinity same as salty water with concentration of sediments derived from linear stability analysis. This work provide baseline experiments for sediment settling in a stably stratified fluids for numerical validations in the future.