Sandy bed cannot keep its original smoothness as the flows pass. With the increase of the flow intensity, the bed forms will appear as sand ripples and dune in turn. Among these morphologies, the sand ripple scale is the smallest, which is generally symmetrical when it just appears, but as time goes on, the asymmetrical form gradually develops. Just because of this sand ripples asymmetry, it manifests the influence of the flow on the bed morphology and also the impact on the laminar flow dynamical process, especially the stability characteristics. The stability features of laminar flow on open channels with the asymmetrical sand ripples are discussed, and also the results on the symmetrical sand ripples are compared in detail.
XU HaiJue & BAI YuChuan* Institute for Sedimentation River and Coastal Engineering, School of Civil Engineering, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300072, China
