Self-aeration in open channel flows occurs owing to free surface air entrainment. Self-aeration development and fully cross-sectional distribution of air concentration are not thoroughly understood. In the present study, an analytical solution for the averaged cross-sectional air concentration in the gradually varying region is established using a simplified mechanism of free surface air entrainment. For a fully cross-sectional distribution of air concentration affected by the channel bottom, a model of a diffusion region without wall restraint is proposed, and two situations are classified based on averaged cross-sectional air concentration. Good agreement between measured data and calculations is obtained, and the computational accuracy of the air concentration distribution near the wall is improved. The results reveal that the channel slope determines the air entrainment quantity, while water flow discharge determines the self-aeration evolution distance. The solutions for the averaged cross-sectional air concentration and the effect of the bottom wall on air diffusion promote air–water flow applications in hydraulic engineering practices.

Simulation of suspended sediment concentration (SSC) has great significance in predicting the sediment transport rate, vegetation growth, and the river ecosystem in channels. The present study focuses on investigating the vertical SSC profile in the vegetated open channel flows. To this end, a model of the dispersive flux is proposed in which the dispersive coefficient is expressed as partitioned linear profile above or below the half height of vegetation. The double‐averaging method, that is, time‐spatial average, is applied to investigate the vertical SSC profile in the vegetated open channel flows. The analytical solution of SSC in both submerged and emergent vegetated open channel flows is obtained by solving the vertical double‐averaging sediment advection‐diffusion equation. The morphological coefficient, a key factor of dispersive coefficient, is obtained by fitting the existing experimental data. The analytically predicted SSC agrees well with the experimental measurements, indicating that the proposed model can be used to accurately predict the SSC in the vegetated open channel flows. Results show that the dispersive term can be ignored in the region without vegetation, while the dispersive term has significant effect on the vertical SSC profile within the region of vegetation. The present study demonstrates that the dispersive coefficient is closely related to vegetation density, vegetation structure, and stem Reynolds number but has little relation with flow depth. With a few exceptions, the absolute value of the dispersive coefficient decreases with the increase of vegetation density and increases with the increase of stem Reynolds number in the submerged vegetated open channels.

The aquatic vegetation patch plays a significant role on sediment net deposition in the vegetated channels. Particularly, the flow is decelerated at the leading edge of a patch that tends to induce vertical updraft, that is, a diverging flow region, in which vegetation greatly affects the pattern of sediment net deposition. This study focuses on the simulation of the sediment net deposition in the whole vegetation patch region through an innovative random displacement model, a Lagrange method, with probability‐based boundary conditions, instead of the reflection or sorption boundary at the channel bottom. The probability model of deposition and resuspension is proposed according to the flow field characteristics in the different regions of the vegetation patch. The variation of the sediment deposition and resuspension with the turbulent kinetic energy is analyzed to illustrate the effect of the turbulence induced by vegetation, represented by the dimensionless turbulent kinetic energy (ψ), on the sediment deposition and resuspension. The sediment deposition predicted by the proposed model agrees well with the experimental measurements. Results show that the effect of vegetation on the sediment deposition and resuspension motions begins to prevail when the vegetation‐induced ψ is larger than its threshold, ψ _* . The threshold of ψ is predicted to be within 6.8–10 according to the simulation results in this study. As the turbulent kinetic energy increases, the deposition probability decreases continuously when ψ > ψ _* .