Local/Spatial Variation of Settling Velocities of Cohesive Sediments from Han Estuary

The purpose of this study is to quantify the settling velocities of cohesive sediments from Han estuary and to evaluate their local variation within Han estuary. This study also includes an estimation of their spatial variation, for which the settling velocities of cohesive sediments from Han estuary arecompared with those for sediments from other regions. At the same time, physical-chemical properties, such as grain size distribution, the percentage of organic contents, mineralogical composition etc are measured in this study in order to examine their correlation with settling velocities and their effect on settling velocities. Results from settling tests shaw that the settling velocities of Han estuary mud varies in the range of two orders of magnitude(from 0.01 to 1.5 mm/sec) over the corresponding concentration range of 0.1 to 80 g/L, and a feature of the settling velocity profile is quite different in quantity as compared to those of previous studies for muds from other regions. Particularly in the flocculated settling region, the settling velocity for Han estuary muds is shown to be larger than that of Saemankeum and Keum estuary sediments, while in the hindered settling region all three sediments are shown to have a similar settling velocity. However, local variability of the settling velocities within Han estuary is shown to be insignificant.