ABSTRACT
Turbulent shallow flow vortices are very common
in many hydraulic, environmental, and geophysical
flows. Topographical forcing (e.g. islands, headlands,
groins, etc.) creates velocity variations in transverse
direction and causes initial flow instabilities (Jirka &
Uijttewaal 2004). Due to the confinement of flow
depth, these instabilities grow in the horizontal dimen-
sion and lead to the generation of large-scale predom-
inantly two-dimensional coherent structures (2DCS),
where the horizontal length scale is much larger than
water depth (Uijttewaal & Booij 2000). These flow
structures are important for controlling the mass,
momentum, and heat transport of the flow and thereby
strongly influence the mixing processes of pollutants
and the erosion process of the bottom surface (Lin &
et al. 2003, Carmer & et al. 2004). The aim of this
study is to understand the behavior of the large-scale
flow structures in the form of vortex system in uniform
shallow flow.
