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On the hindered settling of sand-mud suspensions

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Abstract

Hindered settling, the process by which the settling of sediment particles becomes impeded due to the proximity of other sediment particles, can be an important process for the coastal modeller, especially in highly muddy environments. It is also a significant process in other disciplines such as chemical engineering, the modelling of debris flow, the study of turbidites, piping of slurries and the understanding of processes occurring within a dredger hopper. This study first examines the hindered settling behaviour of monodisperse suspensions in order to create a framework for polydisperse hindered settling that works for both non-cohesive and cohesive suspensions. The Richardson–Zaki equation is adapted to make it compatible with the changes with viscosity that occur near the point at which suspensions become solid. The modified monodisperse settling equation is then compared to data for hindered settling of cohesive suspensions and shown to be consistent with the transition between hindered settling and the initial permeability phase of consolidation. Based on the monodisperse framework developed initially, this paper proposes a hindered settling model for sand/mud mixtures which is based on a modification of the Masliyah (1979) and Lockett and Bassoon (1979) hindered settling equation. The model is shown to reproduce the hindered settling of a variety of different sediment mixtures whilst reducing the extent of empiricism often associated with the modelling of polydisperse hindered settling of mud/sand mixtures.

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Acknowledgements

Professor Manning’s contribution to this manuscript was partly funded by HR Wallingford Company Research project ‘FineScale - Dynamics of Fine-grained Cohesive Sediments at Varying Spatial and Temporal Scales’ (DDY0523).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. HR Wallingford, Howbery Park, Wallingford, Oxfordshire, OX10 8BA, UK

    Jeremy Spearman & Andrew J. Manning

  2. University of Plymouth, Plymouth, Devon, PL4 8AA, UK

    Andrew J. Manning

  3. Department of Geography, Environment and Earth Sciences, University of Hull, Hull, HU6 7RX, UK

    Andrew J. Manning

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  1. Jeremy Spearman
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Correspondence to Jeremy Spearman.

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Responsible Editor: Erik A Toorman

This article is part of the Topical Collection on the 13th International Conference on Cohesive Sediment Transport in Leuven, Belgium 7-11 September 2015

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Spearman, J., Manning, A.J. On the hindered settling of sand-mud suspensions. Ocean Dynamics 67, 465–483 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10236-017-1034-7

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