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Estimation of bed shear stresses in the pearl river estuary

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Abstract

Mean and fluctuating velocities were measured by use of a pulse coherent acoustic Doppler profiler (PC-ADP) and an acoustic Doppler velocimeter in the tidal bottom boundary layer of the Pearl River Estuary. The bed shear stresses were estimated by four different methods: log profile (LP), eddy correlation (EC), turbulent kinetic energy (TKE), and inertial dissipation (ID). The results show that (a) all four methods for estimating bed stresses have advantages and disadvantages, and they should be applied simultaneously to obtain reliable frictional velocity and to identify potential sources of errors; (b) the LP method was found to be the most suitable to estimate the bed stresses in non-stratified, quasi-steady, and homogeneous flows; and (c) in the estuary where the semi-diurnal tidal current is dominant, bed shear stresses exhibit a strong quarter-diurnal variation.

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Correspondence to Jia-xue Wu  (吴加学).

Additional information

This study was financially supported by the National Basic Research and Development Program of China (Grant No. 2013CB956502), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 41276079 and 41176067), and the Open Research Foundation of Pearl River Hydraulic Research Institute (Grant No. 2013KJ07).

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Liu, H., Wu, Jx. Estimation of bed shear stresses in the pearl river estuary. China Ocean Eng 29, 133–142 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13344-015-0010-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13344-015-0010-6

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