Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Date of Award

2019

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Ph.D. in Engineering Science

Department

Civil Engineering

First Advisor

Daniel Wren

Second Advisor

Cristiane Q. Surbeck

Third Advisor

Joseph R. Gladden

Relational Format

dissertation/thesis

Abstract

The movement of coarse gravel in rivers in streams is important for many applications including wildlife habitation, river morphology, infrastructure maintenance and marine navigation. Physical sampling remains the most accurate method of determining coarse bedload transport but it can be expensive, dangerous and flow intrusive. Surrogate methods of monitoring bedload transport is an active area of research worldwide. One such method is the use of passive acoustics to record the sound generated when gravel particles in motion impact each other or the particles on the bed. This dissertation presents research and development that has been conducted on three key areas within this topic: laboratory studies studying the sound generated from single particle impacts, the assembly and calibration of commercially available hardware, and three case studies collecting acoustic data in conjunction with physical samples.

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