Spatially varied flow in non-prismatic channels - II: Numerical solution and experimental verification

A new governing equation was proposed for the spatially varied flows with increasing discharge, which affects the position and the depth of the control section as well as the entire water surface profile within the channel. This paper presents the use of the Newton-Raphson method in the solution process. The results of the computational model were compared with experimental data and with the output of the traditional equation. It was indicated that because of incorporating the expansion factor of the non-prismatic channels, the proposed equation is able to represent the experimental data very well and hence is superior to the traditional equation for design purposes. Copyright (C) 2002 John Wiley Sons, Ltd.