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Simple settling velocity formula for calcareous sand

a b c
Juan Carlos Alcerreca , Rodolfo Silva & Edgar Mendoza
a
Instituto de Ingeniería, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. Edificio 5 , Circuito
Escolar. Cd. Universitaria, Coyoacán 04510 , México D.F. , México E-mail:
b
Instituto de Ingeniería, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. Edificio 5 , Circuito
Escolar. Cd. Universitaria, Coyoacán 04510 , México D.F. , México
c
Instituto de Ingeniería, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. Edificio 5 , Circuito
Escolar. Cd. Universitaria, Coyoacán 04510 , México D.F. , México E-mail:
Published online: 26 Feb 2013.

To cite this article: Juan Carlos Alcerreca , Rodolfo Silva & Edgar Mendoza (2013) Simple settling velocity formula for
calcareous sand, Journal of Hydraulic Research, 51:2, 215-219, DOI: 10.1080/00221686.2012.753645

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 Journal of Hydraulic Research Vol. 51, No. 2 (2013), pp. 215–219
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00221686.2012.753645
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Technical note

Simple settling velocity formula for calcareous sand

JUAN CARLOS ALCERRECA, Instituto de Ingeniería, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. Edificio 5, Circuito Escolar.
Cd. Universitaria, Coyoacán 04510, México D.F., México
Email: jcah_alcerrec@yahoo.com.mx
RODOLFO SILVA, Full Professor, Instituto de Ingeniería, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. Edificio 5, Circuito Escolar.
Cd. Universitaria, Coyoacán 04510, México D.F., México
Downloaded by [UNAM Ciudad Universitaria] at 16:38 20 February 2015

Email: rsilvac@ii.unam.mx (author for correspondence)

EDGAR MENDOZA, Associate Researcher, Instituto de Ingeniería, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. Edificio 5, Circuito
Escolar. Cd. Universitaria, Coyoacán 04510, México D.F., México
Email: emendozab@ii.unam.mx

ABSTRACT
From the analysis of 1557 calcareous sand grains, a new equation for the computation of particle settling velocity is derived. The proposed expression
involves only the dimensionless particle diameter and the Reynolds number, meaning that the estimation of the settling velocity is quick and easy. This
formula is compared with expressions available elsewhere and its improved accuracy is demonstrated. When the formula was applied to Hallermeier’s
database [(1981). Terminal settling velocity of commonly occurring sand grains. Sedimentology 28(6), 859–865], which has been used in previous
studies to develop settling velocity equations, it was also found to have the smallest root mean square error. The equation reported in the paper is one
of very few expressions specifically developed for calcareous sand.

Keywords: Biogenic sand; calcareous sand; deposition; grain size; settling velocity

1 Introduction 2 Methodology

Calcareous sandy beaches of marine origin are common in
tropical areas worldwide. Relying on their natural beauty,
these beaches have been increasingly used for tourism over
recent years. The construction of tourist infrastructure, which
often competes with coastal processes, often accelerates erosion
processes causing ecological, social and economic problems.
For sediment transport modelling, settling velocity values are
required. While the understanding of settling velocity has been
built up gradually, and improvements to the equations have been
made for siliceous sand, there is little specific information for
calcareous sand. Observations of the settling of calcareous par-
ticles (Stringham et al. 1969) and experimental results (Smith
and Cheung 2003) show different behaviour from that observed
in terrigenous material and/or regular particles, due to the pres-
ence of indentations and other irregularities in the calcareous
particles. This paper presents a simple settling velocity formula
for calcareous sand particles for engineering applications.
One hundred and forty-five sand samples were taken across beach
profiles, collected at 58 sites along the coast of the Yucatan
Peninsula, Mexico (Fig. 1). These beaches were formed by an
accumulation of carbonate grainstone, which built a strand plain
along the Yucatan coast during the late Pleistocene high stand of
the sea level. The carbonate and oolitic grainstone were mainly
deposited by waves and by longshore currents. The most notable
characteristic of the coastal sediment is that it has virtually no
terrigenous material, since there are no rivers in the peninsula
(SGM 2006).
The sediment samples from Cancun were mainly oolites and
the rest were skeletal mollusk detritus and coral fragments,
which is in accordance with Carranza-Edwards et al. (1996),
who reported that coastal sediments in Yucatan, are, in order of
importance, biogenic remains followed by intraclasts and oolites
with an average carbonate content of 87% and a maximum value
of 98%. Figure 2 shows some examples of the sand samples.

Revision received 25 November 2012/Open for discussion until 30 October 2013.

ISSN 0022-1686 print/ISSN 1814-2079 online

http://www.tandfonline.com
215
 216 J.C. Alcerreca et al.
Figure 1 Sand sample sites on the Yucatan Peninsula
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Figure 2 Examples of sand samples from: (a) Punta Allen, (b) Cancun, (c) Chelen and (d) Punta Brava. Photograph by the author
The grain distribution characterization was carried out by
shaking a series of sieves with an electric Ro-Top machine. The
material retained in each sieve was weighed with an electronic
scale. To find the density of each sand sample, the sand, retained
in the sieve, corresponding to the diameter D50 , was used in
accordance with the standard ASTM-D-854 (1992). To get the
settling velocity, 1557 grains were randomly selected from the
fraction containing D50 particles. To choose the grains, a printed
grid with 1 mm wide cells was placed under the sediment and dig-
ital images were taken using a Nikon D200 camera with a Nikon
micro lens 105 mm. Each image was analysed on a PC and then
grains were separated from the sand sample. The photos were
taken with a 3872 × 2592 pixel resolution, corresponding to a
length of 0.0066 mm per pixel. With this digital material, apart
Journal of Hydraulic Research Vol. 51, No. 2 (2013)
from selecting the grains, it was possible to measure directly the
maximum particle length a, the intermediate axis b and, by means
of trigonometric relations with the projected shadow, the third
dimension c (to obtain the nominal diameter dN = (abc)1/3 ), and
other parameters.
The experimental set-up to determine the settling velocity
included a vertical glass tube with 6 cm internal diameter and
50 cm height (Fig. 3), and a 30 fps digital camcorder to record
the path of the particle during its fall. Before starting the tests,
it was found that the tube walls had no significant effect: using
the expression proposed by Arsenijević et al. (2010), the esti-
mated error due to the wall effect, in the most unfavourable case,
was less than 0.063%. The settling tube was filled with distilled
water at 17◦ C to keep the fluid parameters constant. Selected
 Journal of Hydraulic Research Vol. 51, No. 2 (2013)
Figure 3 Photo of the experimental set-up for settling velocity
measurements. Photograph by the author
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sand grains were left on the water surface and then touched
lightly, just enough to break the surface tension and allow them to
drop. As the recording speed is known and the video is digitally
fragmented, it is easy to calculate the velocity. After prelimi-
nary experimental and theoretical tests using Stokes’ law, the
distance from the water surface to a location where a constant
velocity of the sediment is achieved was less than 20 cm. There-
fore, recordings started at 25 cm below the water surface, which
is in agreement with the results found by Yaghoobi and Torabi
(2012).
3 Results
The full database of this study included physical and mechani-
cal parameters, such as sieve diameter, perimeter, shape factor,
sphericity, roundness, nominal diameter and density. The sand
density varied from 2200 to 2900 kg/m3 , while the nominal
diameters ranged from 0.07 to 2.00 mm and the shape factor
c/(ab)0.5 from 0.114 to 0.98. In the tests, the particle Reynolds
number R ranged from 0.302 to 454.30 with only 2% of the tests,
corresponding to the laminar regime and the rest to the transition
regime.
Employing the obtained database, the particle Reynolds num-
ber can be related to the nominal diameter and the dimensionless
particle diameter D∗ , similar to other studies such as that of
Camenen (2007). Several coefficients and equations were tested
to develop the relationship for the settling velocity. The selection
not only accounted for the best correlation value but also for the
simplicity of the equation. The final best fit model is:
 1.5
Wf dN
R= = 22 + 1.13D2∗ − 4.67 (1)
ν
where
D∗ = dN [(g/ν 2 )(ρs /ρ − 1)]1/3 (2)
Simple settling velocity formula for calcareous sand 217
In Eqs. (1) and (2), g is the acceleration of gravity, dN is the
nominal diameter, Wf is the settling velocity, ν is the kinematic
viscosity of water and ρs and ρ are the densities of sediment par-
ticle and fluid, respectively. Equation (1) has the same structure
as the Camenen (2007) equation. Figure 4 shows the experi-
mental data and the selected best fit model as a function of the
dimensionless particle diameter.
To check the performance of the proposed relationship for
the calcareous sand settling velocity, a comparison between the
experimental data, Eq. (1) and other settling velocity expres-
sions was made, including those of Zanke (1977), Hallermeier
(1981), Van Rijn (1984), Rubey (1993), Julien (1995), Soulsby
(1997), Cheng (1997), Chang and Liou (2001), Ahrens (2003),
Jimenez and Madsen (2003) and Camenen (2007). When using
the Jimenez and Madsen (2003) formula, the standard value of the
shape factor of natural sands suggested by these authors was used,
while with Camenen (2007) formula, the experimental shape
factors were employed. The results obtained are expressed in
terms of the mean normalized absolute error (ER1 = |1 − O/P|),
root mean normalized square error (ER2 = [(1 − O/P)2 ]1/2 ), the
coefficient of efficiency (E1 = 1 − |O − P|/|O − O|), and the
2
coefficient of determination (E2 = 1 − (O − P)2 /(O − O) ),
the last two measures are defined in Legates and McCabe (2012),
where O and P are the experimental and calculated settling veloc-
ities, respectively, and the overbar denotes the average of the
sample.
First, an evaluation was made taking into account only the
range of values of diameters and shape factors suggested by each
of the above authors who worked with terrigenous sands, and
then the comparison was made using the whole database. We
found that the relative differences between ER1 , ER2 , E1 and E2
in these two assessments were not higher than 0.5%. The results
of this comparison with the whole database are given in Table 1,
where it is shown that Eq. (1) has the smallest average error
Figure 4 Proposed model (Eq. 1) compared with experimental results
 218 J.C. Alcerreca et al. Journal of Hydraulic Research Vol. 51, No. 2 (2013)

Table 1 Normalized errors and coefficient of efficiency between (1981) database. To make the comparison meaningful, the dif-
settling velocity equations and experiments ference between nominal or sieve diameter employed in the
Equation ER1 (%) ER2 (%) E1 E1
formula was solved using the rule suggested by Raudkivi (1990)
D50 ≈ 0.9dN . Figure 5 shows that Eq. (1) fits the data from
Zanke (1977) 39.62 59.23 0.417 0.651 Hallermeier’s (1981) database quite well. The performance mea-
Hallermeier (1981) 37.52 57.92 0.565 0.379 sures of different equations and our model (1) are given in
Van Rijn (1984) 40.34 60.62 0.383 0.585 Table 2. In terms of the coefficients of efficiency (E1 = 0.81 and
Rubey (1993) 29.64 40.30 0.423 0.624
Julien (1995) 41.48 61.81 0.399 0.640
E2 = 0.95), the proposed equation is the best and could even be
Soulsby (1997) 42.02 62.53 0.359 0.571 extended to samples of non-calcareous material.
Cheng (1997) 34.57 53.84 0.482 0.702
Chang and Liou (2001) 36.81 56.75 0.423 0.624
Jimenez and Madsen (2003) 35.78 55.48 0.442 0.642 4 Conclusions
Ahrens (2003) 36.48 56.33 0.440 0.632
Camenen (2007) 25.94 41.33 0.579 0.784 Although we cannot consider that the samples tested represent all
Eq. (1) 23.63 37.53 0.611 0.818 calcareous sand types, the proposed model demonstrates the best
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performance in prediction of the settling velocity compared with

other equations. When using Hallermeier’s (1981) database, Eq.
(1) does not give the best fit in terms of absolute differences, that
is, E1 = 0.812 versus E1 = 0.844 for Ahrens (2003) formula,
but it offers the best fit in terms of the variance, E2 = 0.947.
The model suggested is the first specifically developed for cal-
careous sand. The root mean square errors and the coefficients
of determination give an idea of the uncertainty of the results
obtained with the proposed relationship. These values indicate
that other features of the sand grains were not taken into account
in this model, such as indentations and/or porosity. The influence
of the morphological properties was not considered because of
the great variability between the grains within the same sample.
Thus, the inclusion of these elements must be made carefully
while, at the same time, not making the expression too complex
or the estimation of the parameters too difficult.

Figure 5 Proposed model (Eq. 1) compared with Hallermeier’s (1981)

database Notation

Table 2 Normalized errors and coefficient of efficiency between a, b, c = largest, intermediate and minimum lengths of
settling velocity equations and Hallermeier’s (1981) database the particle (m)
D∗ = dimensionless particle diameter (–)
Equation ER1 (%) ER2 (%) E1 E2 dN = nominal diameter (m)
E1 = coefficient of efficiency (–)
Zanke (1977) 12.71 18.77 0.815 0.939
Hallermeier (1981) 10.86 16.63 0.843 0.943 E2 = coefficient of the determination (–)
Van Rijn (1984) 11.63 17.67 0.820 0.935 ER1 = mean normalized absolute error (%)
Rubey (1993) 25.95 28.59 0.842 0.946 ER2 = root mean normalized square error (%)
Julien (1995) 12.32 17.09 0.789 0.924 g = acceleration of gravity (m/s2 )
Soulsby (1997) 11.13 17.20 0.831 0.943 O = experimental settling velocity
Cheng (1997) 11.19 15.86 0.817 0.938 P = calculated settling velocity
Chang and Liou (2001) 10.61 16.16 0.842 0.946 R = particle Reynolds number (–)
Jimenez and Madsen (2003) 10.77 16.27 0.835 0.943 Wf = settling velocity (m/s)
Ahrens (2003) 10.41 16.26 0.844 0.944 ρs , ρ = densities of sediment particle and fluid (kg/m3 )
Camenen (2007) 12.62 16.71 0.806 0.935 ν = kinematic viscosity of water (m2 /s)
Eq. (1) 12.50 15.84 0.812 0.947

(ER1 = 23.63% and ER2 = 37.53%) and highest coefficients of
efficiency (E1 = 0.61 and E2 = 0.82).
Additionally, to verify the applicability of Eq. (1) for ter-
rigenous sand, we compared this relationship with Hallermeier’s
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