Numerical investigation of chaotic advection past a groyne based on laboratory flow experiment

A laboratory flow past a groyne with complex hydrodynamics was investigated using surface Particle Tracking Velocimetry (PTV) technique for detecting chaotic features in fluvial mixing processes. In the reconstructed velocity field particles were deployed and tracked numerically in a Lagrangian way. Calculating some appropriate parameters (e.g. flushing times, finite-size Lyapunov exponent) originating from chaos theory, we are able to give a more detailed picture on surface mixing driven by aperiodic flows than traditional approaches, including the separation of sub-regions characterized by sharply different mixing efficiency. (C) 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.