Abstract EN:

The overall aim of the present research is to understand the effects of grain sorting on bedload. In a first step, experimental results in addition to available data of the literature are used to constitute a data set of 1449 values. This data set permitted to valid friction and transport laws for flows over uniform materials. In a second step, experiments were performed over poorly sorted sediments, and no equilibrium slope was obtained whatever the run and the experiment duration. Instead a periodic pattern fluctuation was observed, affecting the bed slope, the bed load discharge, and the bed state (varying from armour to fine bed). A special bed form resulting from grains sorting, called “bed load sheets” appears to be the keystone of the fluctuating process. The concept of transport rate efficiency is used to demonstrate that grain sorting may control the fluctuation periods and amplitudes by controlling the sand content of the bed load mixture. This hypothesis permits to reproduce the amplitude of mean bed slope fluctuations observed with the long experiments for different slopes and sediment mixtures.