Abstract
Vegetation surrogates have been extensively used in laboratory experiments for studying flow–vegetation interactions. However, it remains unclear how accurately the surrogates replicate the prototype vegetation in terms of hydrodynamic performance, even when similarity conditions are followed. To address this matter, we compare the hydrodynamic performance of seaweed blades of the species Saccharina latissima with performance of their surrogates, which were designed based on similarity considerations. To assess the hydrodynamic performance of samples, we measured flow velocities upstream and downstream of the samples, their vertical movements, and the drag forces exerted on them. The obtained data reveal that the mechanisms governing flow–blade interactions are essentially the same for live blades and their surrogates. Even though the surrogates successfully replicate many aspects of live blade dynamics, they experience weaker drag force and reconfiguration, likely because of their simplified morphologies that differed from the live blades at small scales. To enhance similarity in hydrodynamic performances, we suggest employing comprehensive similarity conditions at all relevant scales.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 248-261 |
Number of pages | 14 |
Journal | Journal of Hydraulic Research |
Volume | 58 |
Issue number | 2 |
Early online date | 11 Mar 2019 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - Feb 2020 |
Bibliographical note
FundingThe work described in this publication was undertaken during the PhD study of Davide Vettori at the University of Aberdeen funded by a scholarship from the Northern Research Partnership, Scotland
Acknowledgements
The authors gratefully acknowledge the assistance of Elisa Bozzolan, Euan Judd, Henry Lecallet, and Olivia McCabe in collecting datasets used in this publication. The authors also thank Stuart Cameron and Euan Judd for support in developing video analysis routines, David Attwood and Hamish Biggs for their assistance during seaweed collection and transportation to the University of Aberdeen, and technicians Roy Gillanders and Benjamin Stratton for meticulous technical support of the experiments. Very useful comments provided by two anonymous reviewers, the Associate Editor and Editor helped to improve the final version of the paper.
Keywords
- Drag coefficient
- flow–biota interactions
- hydraulic models
- similarity theory
- turbulent wakes
- velocity measurements