Sediment vibration characteristics based on accelerometer measurements

Abstract

The study of the vibration phenomenon of pebbles under turbulence is still a gap despite recent technological advancements in measurement capabilities. In this study, the vibration process of a fully exposed, isolated smart pebble on a rough bed was measured using a miniature inertial accelerometer and combined with simultaneous local measurements of the near-bed velocities. The paper conducts a series of experimental studies with different flow conditions. The test data match well with the manually observed phenomena, indicating the authenticity of the sediment vibration data collected by the measurement system. The test results show that the pebble motion (before entrainment) subjected to turbulence is a nonlinear vibration process, and its vibration types include in-situ vibration and ex-situ strong vibration. The probability distribution for the amplitude of vibration acceleration is well parameterized by the normal distribution. The vibration intensity tends to increase before approaching the threshold, but it weakens when approaching the point. The sediment vibration frequency is within 20–25 Hz, similar to the flow pulsation frequency and belongs to low-frequency vibration. The data indicate that the near-bed flow velocity is most directly related to the particle vibration events.