Abstract
Conventional pipeline sand transportation systems generally consume excessive amount of energy to ensure the system to transport sediments without causing problems such as blockage of the system. These systems are thus economically inefficient although the safety operation factor of the system may be relatively high. On the other hand, some systems aim to utilize clean energy such as water head to transport sediments. While these systems, consuming relatively low energy, may have only small sediment transport rates, the system may be operated for longer duration of time without having significant impacts on the surrounding environment. The ultimate goal of this research is thus to develop such low-energy sand-bypassing systems. This paper especially aims to investigate the sediment transport characteristics in the pipe flow especially when the flow velocity is relatively low.
