ABSTRACT
The northern entrance of the Suez Canal consists of two intersecting approach channels; the deeper eastern channel and the western channel. A study is undertaken for the development of the Suez Canal (second development stage). There are four development alternatives to enable larger loaded tankers with draughts 56, 62, 68 and 72 feet for the four development schemes, respectively to use the Suez Canal. The development projects will require the deepening and widening of the eastern channel. An important part of the study deals with the prediction of the siltation rates in the eastern approach channel of the Suez Canal for the proposed development alternatives.
The present paper deals with the development and application of the SUTRENCH-model to predict the siltation rates in the eastern approach channel of the Suez Canal for the four proposed development alternatives. The SUTRENCH-model is a two dimensional detailed sediment transport model to be applied to pre-defmed streamtubes covering the area of interest. As the model was originally developed for cohessionless sediment,the first stage of this research work is the development of the model to be applied to the mud sediment of the project area. The calibration of the model is performed for present conditions based on the recorded dredging quantities and the siltation heights calculated from soundings. The model is then used in the prediction of the siltation rates in the eastern channel for the four development alternatives. A senstivity analysis is performed for the SUTRENCH-model to test its senstivity to variations in wave heights and deviations in channel cross-section dimensions.
