Asymmetric Plane Flow with Application to Ice Jams

Abstract

An available turbulence method is used to prove that in plane flows between two boundaries with asymmetric roughness the plane of maximum velocity is not the plane of zero shear stress. By dividing the flow at the plane of zero shear stress, laboratory and field data on flows below simulated and actual ice jams are analyzed to derive equations for the boundaries' friction factors in terms of mean flow velocity, depth of flow zone, and boundary roughness for smooth and fully rough boundaries. These equations are applied to the calculations of ice jam characteristics. For the jams studied, the present method gives a variation of about 10% in the jam characteristics with a method based on dividing the flow at the plane of maximum velocity.