Coastal Engineering 51 (2004) 91 – 100

www.elsevier.com/locate/coastaleng

Settling velocity of sediments at high concentrations

T.E. Baldock a,*, M.R. Tomkins a, P. Nielsen a, M.G. Hughes b
a
Division of Civil Engineering, University of Queensland, St. Lucia, Brisbane, QLD 4072, Australia
b
School of Geosciences and University of Sydney Institute of Marine Science, University of Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia
Received 17 June 2003; received in revised form 10 December 2003; accepted 19 December 2003

Abstract

New data on the settling velocity of artificial sediments and natural sands at high concentrations are presented. The data are
compared with a widely used semiempirical Richardson and Zaki equation (Trans. Inst. Chem. Eng. 32 (1954) 35), which gives
an accurate measure of the reduction in velocity as a function of concentration and an experimentally determined empirical
power n. Here, a simple method of determining n is presented using standard equations for the clear water settling velocity and
the seepage flow within fixed sediment beds. The resulting values for n are compared against values derived from new and
existing laboratory data for beach and filter sands. For sands, the appropriate values of n are found to differ significantly from
those suggested by Richardson and Zaki for spheres, and are typically larger, corresponding to a greater reduction in settling
velocity at high concentrations. For fine and medium sands at concentrations of order 0.4, the hindered settling velocity reduces
to about 70% of that expected using values of n derived for spheres. At concentrations of order 0.15, the hindered settling
velocity reduces to less than half of the settling velocity in clear water. These reduced settling velocities have important
implications for sediment transport modelling close to, and within, sheet flow layers and in the swash zone.
D 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Fall velocity; Hindered settling; Sediment concentration; Suspended sediment transport; Sheet flow; Swash zone sediment transport

1. Introduction 1992). Alternatively, a number of empirical expres-

sions for the fall velocity are available (Gibbs et al.,
An accurate assessment of the settling velocity of 1971; Jiminez and Madsen, 2003). However, in high
sediment particles is fundamental to the modelling of energy flow conditions and close to the sediment bed,
sediment suspension, mixing processes and sediment suspended sediment concentrations become signifi-
transport in the coastal zone. For single particles, or cant, approaching the concentration of the immobile
dilute suspensions, the settling velocity can be accu- bed itself, cmax. For example, in sheet flow layers and
rately predicted by equating gravity and drag forces plug flow, concentrations range from cmax to about
using an appropriate drag coefficient for spheres (e.g. 0.1cmax (Zala Flores and Sleath, 1998; O’Donoghue
Nielsen, 1992) or sand (e.g. Fredsøe and Deigaard, and Wright, 2001, Dohmen-Janssen and Hanes,
2002). At these concentrations, the particle settling
velocity may reduce to 10% or less of the clear water
* Corresponding author. Fax: +61-3365-4599. settling velocity (hindered settling), leading to re-
E-mail address: [email protected] (T.E. Baldock). duced (less negative) concentration gradients over

0378-3839/$ - see front matter D 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.coastaleng.2003.12.004
92 T.E. Baldock et al. / Coastal Engineering 51 (2004) 91–100

those otherwise expected, i.e. a more uniform distri- was found to hold over the full range of possible
bution of sediment in the vertical. In addition, Sleath voidage above incipient fluidisation and n was deter-
(1999) notes that the sediment settling velocity at mined experimentally to lie in the range 4.65– 2.4 for
these high concentrations is an important factor con- increasing Rt. Experiments since and further correla-
trolling the compaction of the sediment bed and the tions of the data have not significantly improved the
subsequent sediment mobility. predictive capability of Eq. (1) (e.g. Rowe, 1987; Khan
Recent advances in sediment transport modelling and Richardson, 1989), and an extensive review of
are beginning to consider hindered settling effects suggested empirical expressions for n from the Chem-
(e.g. Li and Davies, 2001), and the next generation ical Engineering literature is given by Di Felice (1995).
of sediment transport models will need to advance this It should be noted that in Eq. (1), the empirical values
further. However, the need for an improvement upon describing the variation in n with Rt were derived on
Richardson and Zaki (1954) was pointed out by the basis of fluidisation and sedimentation experiments
Nielsen et al. (2002) since that and most later work with spheres. To our knowledge, no equivalent mea-
(e.g. Khan and Richardson, 1989) focused on spher- sured values of n for natural sands appear in the
ical particles. Therefore, a simple but accurate method literature.
to estimate the settling velocity of natural beach Di Felice (1996) presents theoretical expressions
sediments at high concentrations would appear bene- for ws/wt for viscous (Rt < 0.2) and inertial flow
ficial. This paper discusses such a method, which in regimes (Rt > 500), again for spheres, but laboratory
fact had been considered previously but does not data are still required in the intermediate flow regime
appear at all well known in the literature, especially (corresponding to particle sizes in the range 0.07 <
with regard to coastal sediment transport where it is d < 2.5 mm). Di Felice (1996) does not give values of
particularly relevant. The following section outlines n for the viscous and inertial flow regimes, but
previous work and the basis for estimating the settling appropriate values can be determined numerically
velocity at high concentrations. A description of some from the given expressions that in fact vary slowly
recent experiments used to verify the equations devel- with voidage. These limiting theoretical values for
oped below is given in Section 3. Section 4 presents ws/wt lie just outside the experimental range deter-
and discusses the experimental data, with final con- mined by Richardson and Zaki (1954) and also in this
clusions presented in Section 5. study (see Section 4). Cheng (1997) proposed com-
plex expressions for n that were a function of both
Reynolds number and volume concentration, which is
2. Background not observed in most data, with the differences in
settling velocity governed by changes in the viscosity
2.1. Previous work of the fluid – particle mixture. Mandersloot et al.
(1986) questioned the use of viscosity models and
A large number of experiments have demonstrated introduced a factor into Eq. (1) to account for particle
that particle settling velocities are lower at higher floccing and the volume of fluid trapped close to the
concentrations by a factor usually given by the surface of rough particles. This factor needs evaluat-
widely used semiempirical Richardson and Zaki ing via a complicated experimental procedure.
(1954) equation: Consequently, given that there appeared to be no
ws simple basis for estimating n other than empirical
¼ en ¼ ð1  cÞn ð1Þ correlations, at the outset of this work, we aimed to
wt
develop a straightforward method of determining
where ws is the settling velocity at voidage e (porosity appropriate values of n which would apply to natural
in the soil mechanics literature), c is volumetric beach sands. This is verified against new laboratory
concentration and wt is the terminal settling velocity data and values of n extracted from published fluid-
in an infinite fluid. n is an empirically determined isation data for marine sands (Wilhelm and Kwauk,
exponent dependent on the particle Reynolds number, 1948; Cleasby and Woods, 1975; Cleasby and Fan,
Rt, at wt, and is constant for a particular particle. Eq. (1) 1981).
 T.E. Baldock et al. / Coastal Engineering 51 (2004) 91–100 93

2.2. Predictive equations we found that Eq. (4) was in fact derived previously
by Godard and Richardson (1969), perhaps unsurpris-
Since Eq. (1) applies over the full range of possible ingly given its simplicity. Richardson and Jeronimo
voidage above incipient fluidisation, ws/wt ranges (1979) used the same equation, as did Chianese et al.
from 1 for e = 1 to some lower limit dependent on n (1992), apparently independently; otherwise, Eq. (4)
for emin c 0.4 (cmax c 0.6), the approximate maxi- does not appear to have been used since and has not
mum concentration expected at the boundary with the been tested for natural sands.
undisturbed bed. Hence, to be consistent with the bed For small spherical particles settling at wt accord-
boundary condition at the point of fluidisation, when ing to Stokes Law, and with seepage flow expressed
e = emin: according to Darcy’s Law (wf = ki), then using Eqs. (3)
ws wf and (4) and the simple expression for permeability
! ¼ ðemin Þn ð2Þ (hydraulic conductivity) given by k = 10 3gd 2/m (m/s)
wt wt
(Bear, 1972) gives:
where wf is the fluidisation velocity. This corresponds
to the conditions when the upward seepage force just wf
¼ 103 cmax 18c0:0108 ð5Þ
balances the immersed weight of the granular matrix wt
above, usually written in soil mechanics terms as a
critical hydraulic gradient, i: where g is gravity, d is the particle diameter, m is the
kinematic viscosity (here of water) and cmax = 0.6.
s1 Eqs. (4) and (5) give n = 4.94 for cmax = 0.6, in fair
i¼ ¼ ðs  1Þcmax ð3Þ
1þe agreement with the experimentally determined value
where s is the specific gravity of the granular material for n of 4.8 for Re < 0.2 (Khan and Richardson, 1989).
and e is the void ratio. The critical hydraulic gradient Eq. (5) also gives very close agreement with the
is typically in the range 0.8 – 1 for most quartz sedi- limiting (viscous regime) value of wf/wt = 0.011,
ments, but higher for dense particles and lower for which can be obtained from Di Felice (1995). How-
lightweight particles. ever, in the same flow regime, the drag coefficient for
Hence, for any particular sediment, or cohension- sand is about 40% larger than that for smooth spheres
less particle bed, the value for n which satisfies the (Fredsøe and Deigaard, 1992), and so wf/wt c 0.016,
bed boundary condition and clear water settling con- giving n c 4.5 for cmax = 0.6 (i.e. emin = 0.4, the typ-
dition (ws = wt at c = 0, n arbitrary) may be approxi- ical value for fine-medium sands).
mated by: For larger grain sizes, and denser particles, the

 value of n will reduce. In that case, Darcy’s Law may
log wwt
f no longer be applicable and an appropriate expression
n¼ ð4Þ for wf may be obtained from a version of the For-
logðemin Þ cheimer equation (Ward, 1964; Bear, 1972)
The ratio wf/wt depends on grain density, grain size,
i
emin, fluid viscosity and shape and, for fine and wf ¼ ! ð6Þ
medium sands, is typically of order 0.01 –0.03. Bal- V þ 0:55w
pffiffiffiffiffiffif
dock and Holmes (1998) discuss the implications of gkV gkV
this small ratio when considering the effects of seep-
age flows on sediment transport over mobile beds. Of where k V is the intrinsic hydraulic conductivity,
particular interest here is whether Eq. (4) also holds kV= km/g. Using the Kozeny – Carman equation (Bear,
for naturally graded sands, in addition to uniform or 1972) for the hydraulic conductivity in place of the
well-sorted spherical particles, and this is investigated simple formula above gives negligible differences
through the laboratory experiments described below. when determining wf or n. Using Darcy’s Law, togeth-
The fluidisation velocity is easily evaluated from er with Eqs. (3) and (4), gives 3.67 < n < 4.45 for
appropriate expressions for the seepage flow in the medium to fine sands (0.5 > d > 0.13 mm; cmax = 0.6).
bed and the bed permeability. In preparing this paper, For d > 0.5 mm, wf should be obtained from Eq. (6),
94 T.E. Baldock et al. / Coastal Engineering 51 (2004) 91–100

rather than from using Darcy’s Law (see Fig. 5 in Table 1

Section 4). Hence, Eq. (4) quantifies the influence of Particle properties
grain size (and density) at high concentrations more Particle Specific d (d50) k wt wf wf /wt
gravity,s (mm) (m/s) (m/s) (m/s)
precisely than taking a single value of n = 4 (0.05
mm < d < 0.5 mm) as suggested by Van Rijn (1984). Glass 2.5 0.35 0.0012 0.048 0.001 0.021
spheres 2.5 0.55 0.0029 0.078 0.0025 0.032
2.5 1.85 0.033 0.281 0.013 0.046
2.5 3.0 0.088 0.366 0.019 0.052
3. Experiments Polystyrene 1.08 2.6a 0.0366b 0.046 0.012 0.26
prisms
In order to further investigate the hindered settling Anthracite 1.34 (1.32) 0.011b 0.055 0.021 0.38
Lead shot 11.34 2.4 0.0565 0.9 0.048 0.053
velocity described by Eq. (1) and to validate Eq. (4),
Beach sand 2.65 (0.22) 0.00046 0.023 0.00045 0.02
experiments were carried out in a fluidisation column. 2.65 (0.32) 0.00098 0.04 0.00095 0.024
The column has an internal diameter of 0.096 m and a Filter sand 2.65 0.66 0.0042 0.083 0.0037 0.045
height of 1.37 m (Fig. 1). An upward flow of water is 2.65 0.78 0.006 0.094 0.0048 0.052
generated through an inflow at the base, with a Gravel 2.65 (2.42) 0.057 0.188 0.017 0.09
constant head maintained in the column via an over- Grain size given is sieve diameter.
a
flow to a volumetric discharge measurement of ws. An Intermediate axis length.
b
Measured value used for polystyrene prisms and anthracite.
equalising lower section of coarse gravel followed by
a dense geotextile cloth filter and screen generates
uniform flow across the column. A 0.1– 0.15 m thick
layer of sediment was allowed to settle through water Starting from a flow velocity less than wf, the flow
from the top of the column onto the filter, preventing rate was incrementally increased until fluidisation, and
air entrainment and ensuring a normally compacted then expansion, of the bed occurred. For well-sorted
bed. Manometer tapping points at 0.05-m vertical sediments, the interface between the sediment suspen-
intervals through the sidewall of the column enabled sion and the fluid above is very well defined, enabling
sampling of sediment at different elevations or mea- an accurate assessment of the bed expansion relative to
surement of the piezometric head within the sediment the initial bed level, and hence the concentration or
bed and sediment suspension. voidage of the suspension. For graded sediments, the
interface is not as sharp at high bed expansions and the
concentration will vary within the column (Woodgate,
2002). However, the overall relative concentration can
still be estimated to within about 5%. Experiments
were carried out with a range of different particle sieve
sizes, density and shape, with piezometric head differ-
ences and the bed expansion measured for flow rates
up to ws/wt = 0.8. A summary of the particle properties
is given in Table 1. The beach sands were naturally
graded, with 1.6 < d90/d10 < 2.7. The permeability, k,
terminal velocity, wt, and fluidisation velocity, wf, have
been calculated as described in Section 2 (cmax = 0.6),
with drag coefficients for spheres or sand (Fredsøe and
Deigaard, 1992) as appropriate. wf was also deter-
mined experimentally, with fluidisation easily detected
visually and through a rapid drop in the measured
pressure gradient within the sediment bed. For calcu-
Fig. 1. Fluidisation and settling column. At fluidisation, the
lation purposes, it has been assumed throughout the
volumetric flow velocity through the ‘‘stationary’’ bed is wf and paper that cmax = 0.6, very close to the measured values
also corresponds to ws. obtained for the sands used in the experiments.
 T.E. Baldock et al. / Coastal Engineering 51 (2004) 91–100 95

4. Results and cannot be adequately described by the limiting

values for n.
Fig. 2 shows a plot of log ws versus log e for the The curve for n = 1 is also shown, which represents
experiments described above. A log-linear relation- the value of n required to account for the upward
ship is apparent after fluidisation, with the slope of the displacement (or return flow) of fluid by falling
line giving n, as illustrated by Richardson and Zaki particles (Fredsøe and Deigaard, 1992). A value of
(1954). The y-axis intercept at log(emin) varies for n = 1 was recently used in turbulent closure modelling
each sediment and is not a simple function of wt or of sediment transport by Li and Davies (2001) to
particle diameter. Plotting ws/wt against relative con- include the effect of high concentrations on the
centration, c/cmax, is perhaps more useful (Fig. 3), settling velocity. Their model formulation required
particularly if considering the influence of concentra- c(1 + n) < 1, which, for their near-bed reference con-
tion on suspended sediment transport. At low concen- centration of c = 0.3, limited n to the value 1. Such a
trations (0 < c/cmax < 0.2), the settling velocity is model is therefore limited for application to sheet flow
reduced by up to 40%, with the reduction in settling layers, but would be valid for suspensions up to about
velocity relatively insensitive to particle properties. In c = 0.2 (with n < 4.5 say). Suspended sediment con-
contrast, at high relative concentrations, the reduction centrations of this magnitude typically occur in the
in settling velocity is very dependent on the particle swash zone (see Fig. 6 below). It is interesting to note
properties and ranges from 0.1wt to 0.02wt as wt that despite the fact that taking n = 1 clearly under-
decreases. Fig. 3 also shows the relative settling estimates the hindered settling effect, Li and Davies
velocity in the viscous and inertial regimes obtained (2001) found differences in predicted suspended con-
using values for n as suggested by Richardson and centrations of up to 30%. Using more realistic values
Zaki (1954) and Di Felice’s (1996) expressions for of n is therefore likely to lead to much greater differ-
ws/wt. Although both methods provide an upper and ences in predicted near-bed sediment concentrations.
lower bound for ws/wt, typical values for natural Li and Davies (2001) additionally showed that turbu-
sediments clearly fall in the intermediate regime lence damping at high sediment concentrations is also

Fig. 2. Hindered settling velocity versus voidage. E: 0.35-mm glass; x: 0.5-mm glass;  : 1.85-mm glass; +: 3-mm glass; *: 2.4-mm
polystyrene prism; 5: 1.32-mm anthracite; n: 2.4-mm lead; w : 0.22-mm beach sand; D: 0.32-mm beach sand; o: 2.4-mm gravel.
96 T.E. Baldock et al. / Coastal Engineering 51 (2004) 91–100

Fig. 3. Relative settling velocity versus relative concentration. E: 0.35-mm glass; x: 0.5-mm glass;  : 1.85-mm glass; +: 3-mm glass; *:
2.4-mm polystyrene prism; 5: 1.32-mm anthracite; n: 2.4-mm lead; w : 0.22-mm beach sand; D: 0.32-mm beach sand; o: 2.4-mm
gravel. —: n = 1; —5—: viscous regime (DF); – – 5 – – : inertial regime (DF); – – – – : Re < 0.2 (R&Z); — — —: Re>500 (R&Z).

important in controlling the overall sediment flux, and used. Fig. 4a suggests that Eq. (7) is accurate to
that both process should be considered in modelling within about F 10% in terms of ws and thus provides
work. good estimates of the hindered settling effects. Alter-
Substituting Eq. (4) into Eq. (1) gives a new natively, n can be calculated from Eq. (4), or read
nondimensional equation which reduces the family from Fig. 5 below, and then Eq. (1) can be used to
of curves resulting from Eq. (1) and the experimental determine ws.
data to a single curve: A second plot of the same data, this time using the

 calculated values of wf, is shown in Fig. 4b. Calcu-
log wwt
s
logðeÞ lating wf from standard equations for permeability

¼ ð7Þ
w
log wft logðemin Þ and flow in porous media makes little difference to
the correlation between Eq. (7) and the data for the
A plot of Eq. (7) for the present experimental results finer sediment (Fig. 4b). For the largest particles
is given in Fig. 4a, with emin = 0.4. Here, in order to (d > 2 mm), the correlation is not good at high
verify the accuracy of Eq. (7), wf has been determined concentrations because wf is poorly predicted for
directly from the experimental data. The very close these particles. At lower concentrations (c/cmax < 0.6),
correlation between Eq. (7) and the experimental data Eq. (7) again correlates well with the data. Hence,
suggests that the hydraulic properties of the granular Eq. (4) appears to provide a simple but accurate
matrix just prior to fluidisation provide an accurate measure of n for a wide range of flow conditions
measure of the suspension behaviour at much smaller and particle properties.
concentrations, an intriguing relationship given the Values for n obtained from Eq. (4) are presented
very different flow conditions. Eq. (7) holds over a graphically in Fig. 5 for sand particles with sieve
wide range of concentrations (0.09 < c/cmax < 1), grain diameters in the range 0.06 > ds > 1 mm. For grain
diameter and particle density. It also appears to apply diameters below 0.4 mm, the simpler Darcy’s flow
to irregularly shaped particles (polystyrene, anthra- law is sufficiently accurate. The values for n obtained
cite), provided the actual (measured) value for wf is directly from the slope of the curves in Fig. 2 are also
 T.E. Baldock et al. / Coastal Engineering 51 (2004) 91–100 97

Fig. 4. (a) Eq. (7) versus experimental data. wf determined directly from measurements. E: 0.35-mm glass; x: 0.5-mm glass;  : 1.85-mm
glass; +: 3-mm glass; *: 2.4-mm polystyrene prism; 5: 1.32-mm anthracite; n: 2.4-mm lead; w : 0.22-mm beach sand; D: 0.32-mm beach sand;
o: 2.4-mm gravel. (b) Eq. (7) versus experimental data. wf calculated theoretically. E: 0.35-mm glass; x: 0.5-mm glass;  : 1.85-mm glass;
+: 3-mm glass; *: 2.4-mm polystyrene prism; 5: 1.32-mm anthracite; n: 2.4-mm lead; w : 0.22-mm beach sand; D: 0.32-mm beach sand; o: 2.4-
mm gravel.

plotted for the present sand data (see Table 1). presented by Wilhelm and Kwauk (1948), Cleasby
Additional values of n have been extracted from and Woods (1975) and Cleasby and Fan (1981). The
similar fluidisation data for marine and filter sands values of n suggested by Richardson and Zaki (1954)
98 T.E. Baldock et al. / Coastal Engineering 51 (2004) 91–100

Fig. 5. Predicted relationships between n [Eq. (4)] and sieve grain size for sands, together with present experimental data and data extracted from
cited sources. —: non-Darcy flow; – – – : Darcy flow; : Richardson and Zaki (spherical particles); n: natural beach sand (present data);
 : Wilhelm and Kwauk (1948) beach sand; 5: filter sand (present data); o: Cleasby and Fan (1981) filter sand; +: Cleasby and Woods (1975)
filter sand.

for uniform spheres are also shown. The measured appear consistent with other fluidisation data for sand
values of n for sand are significantly higher than available in the literature. The good agreement be-
estimates based on Richardson and Zaki (1954), but tween the data and the predicted values clearly indi-

Fig. 6. Example of high relative suspended sediment concentration during a swash cycle. —: depth; – – – : concentration; c/cmax.
 T.E. Baldock et al. / Coastal Engineering 51 (2004) 91–100 99

cate that Eq. (4) provides a reliable method to deter- hindered settling effect typically significantly greater
mine appropriate values of n for both sieved and for sand than for spheres of equivalent size. For fine
naturally graded beach sands. In particular, using d50 and medium sands, the settling velocity reduces to
as a measure of the grain size in Eq. (4) appears less than 20% of the clear water settling velocity for
appropriate for graded sands with d90/d10 < f 3. The suspended sediment concentrations greater than about
difference between the values of n for sand and those 30%. Such concentrations are frequently reached, or
for equivalent-sized spheres can be significant. For exceeded, close to and within sheet flow layers during
example, for medium sands at a concentration of 0.4, high sediment transport conditions.
the resulting settling velocity reduces to about 70% of
the value predicted by Richardson and Zaki (1954).
This difference appears to arise from the significant Acknowledgements
difference in drag coefficient between natural sand
particles and spherical particles (Fredsøe and Dei- The authors gratefully acknowledge funding from
gaard, 1992). the CRC for Sustainable Tourism and University of
The results above are simple to apply to typical Queensland staff grants. The positive and constructive
coastal sediment transport problems. For example, review comments of Dr. A.G. Davies are much
Fig. 6 shows a typical example of an OBS record of appreciated.
the suspended sediment concentration (SSC) 1 – 2 cm
above the bed in the swash zone, together with the
associated swash depth. The data were recorded at References
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