Determination of recovery factor for simulation of non-equilibrium sedimentation in reservoir

It is generally acceptable to assume that bed material load is equal to sediment transport capacity, if the exchange between bed and flow occurs instantaneously. However, for non-equilibrium sediment transport process, there are spatial and temporal delay effects. This is especially true for reservoir sedimentation processes. Recovery factor is a coefficient for non-equilibrium sediment transport. The determination of recovery factor can be obtained either experimentally or numerically. There is no consensus on the value of recovery factor in previous literatures. Numerical simulations with a semi-two dimensional sediment transport model, GSTARS4, were conducted in this study using various methods for the determination of recovery factor proposed by previous researches. Simulated results of a reservoir geometric change were sensitive to the selection of recovery factors. It was found that the recovery factor as a function of sediment size provided the most reasonable result. A functional relationship between recovery factor and sediment size was determined by comparing simulated and measured reservoir geometric change. Coarse sediment has small value of recovery factor.