Simulación del Transporte de Sedimentos Finos en el Estuario del Río Paraíba Do Sul

Abstract

The result of a fine sediment transport Lagrangean model applied to the Paraíba do Sul river estuary (Brasil) is presented. The sedimentation velocity is computed by the Farley and Morel flocculation model and the floc diameter by an iterative algorithm. The floc differential density is determined by parameters in laboratory experiments using disk and Couette flocculator. The floc resistant stress was computed by the average fractal dimension both the flocs developed by shear stress and by differential sedimentation. The diameter and concentration floc were compared with survey data of January, 2004. The flocs formation in the estuarine reach is about 32 µm diameter and it is owing to the turbulent shear stress. The sediments transport occurs near the seashore regions in freshwater, for river mean flow conditions.