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Similarity of Model Experiments

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Experimental Erosion
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Abstract

A successful experiment with a physical model requires necessary conditions of similarity. This chapter presents an experimental method with a semi-scale physical model. Four criteria are mentioned here: similarities of watershed geometry, grain size and bare land, Froude number (Fr) for rainfall event, and soil erosion in the downscaled models. The efficacy of the proposed method was confirmed using these criteria in two different downscaled model experiments. Experimental results show that while the amount of soil loss in the small scale models was converted by multiplying the scale number, the amount was very close to that of the large scale model. Obviously, with a semi-scale physical model, the experiments are available to verify and predict the soil loss in a catchment with the check dam system on the Loess Plateau, China.

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Xu, X., Zhu, T., Zhang, H., Gao, L. (2020). Similarity of Model Experiments. In: Experimental Erosion. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-3801-8_2

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