Hydraulic Geometry Relation for Navigable Canals Considering Ship Speed

Definition of hydraulic geometry of navigable canals and its expression are studied in this paper.The hydrodynamic and morphologic characteristics of navigable canals are analyzed on the basis of the data collected from field surveys conducted at two segments of the Grand Canal in Jiangsu Province,China.The channel morphologic factor and the ship hydrodynamic factor are adopted to describe the hydraulic geometry relation of navigable canals.The correlation analysis shows that the ship hydrodynamics can be a dominant factor influencing the channel evolution with larger determination coefficient.Furthermore,the undetermined index in the proposed hydraulic geometry relation is also discussed,which indicates that the index related to the intensity of water flow(qualitatively reflected by the integrated ship flow intensity)is within a range of 0.5 to 1.0.