Engineering Applications of Computational Fluid

Mechanics

ISSN: 1994-2060 (Print) 1997-003X (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/tcfm20

Evaluation of Sediment Transport in Sewer using

Artificial Neural Network

Isa Ebtehaj & Hossein Bonakdari

To cite this article: Isa Ebtehaj & Hossein Bonakdari (2013) Evaluation of Sediment Transport in
Sewer using Artificial Neural Network, Engineering Applications of Computational Fluid Mechanics,
7:3, 382-392, DOI: 10.1080/19942060.2013.11015479

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/19942060.2013.11015479

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 Engineering Applications of Computational Fluid Mechanics Vol. 7, No.3, pp. 382–392 (2013)

EVALUATION OF SEDIMENT TRANSPORT IN SEWER USING

ARTIFICIAL NEURAL NETWORK
Isa Ebtehaj and Hossein Bonakdari *

Department of Civil Engineering, Razi University, Kermanshah, Iran

*E-Mail: bonakdari@yahoo.com (Corresponding Author)

ABSTRACT: Sedimentation in sewers occurs regularly according to the alternating natural flow. The long term
deposit of material in the sewerage systems increases the risk of changes in the sediments and their consolidation
and cementation. In particular under low flow conditions, permanent settlement similar to that on the sewer bed
alters the nature of velocity and distribution of the boundary shear stress. Consequently, it affects the capacity of
sediment transport and the hydraulic resistance of the sewer. The article reviews the application of Artificial Neural
Network (ANN) in predicting the sediment transport using the concept of self-cleansing of sewer systems. In
comparison with existing methods, the ANN showed acceptable results.
Keywords: self-cleansing, sediment, ANN, sewer, bed-load

1. INTRODUCTION These again, in order to maintain self-cleansing

The occurrence of sedimentation in complex
sanitary sewerage systems, caused by alternation
in flow, has been a matter of lengthy deliberations
by many researchers. Low velocities allow debris
to settle along the invert of the pipe during
periods of minimum discharge. A long term
accumulation of deposit in the sewer increases the
risk of changes occurring in the sediments such as
consolidation and cementation. In particular,
under minimum flow conditions the permanent
settlement on the sewer bed alters the nature of
velocity and the distribution of the boundary
shear stress. Accumulation of sediments results in
a loss of carrying capacity that may cause
surcharge or local flooding and the setting up of
septic conditions which create odour and
corrosion problems, (Bonakdari and Larrarte,
2006). The existence of sediment in the sewer
networks can increase the overall hydraulic
roughness of the pipe and reduce the size of the
cross section. This in turn can change the
hydraulic conditions that have influence on the
sediment carrying capacity. These changes
modify the physical properties of the system and
the turbulence flow structure. In addition, the in-
pipe deposits can have a substantial impact on the
flow quality, as at higher flow conditions rate
large quantities of sediment can be released
suddenly into the flow (Ashley et al., 2004).
The prediction of the probability of sediment
deposit in a given sewer network depends on its
design, based on a set of conditions called self-
cleansing criteria that are related to the flow.
conditions, depend on minimum slope, minimum
velocity of flow or minimum shear stress that the
flow should exert on the walls of the pipe (Ashley
et al., 2004).
Effective self-cleansing occurs when the sewer
has the sediment transport capacity to establish a
balance between the amounts of deposited and
eroded materials and which, for an average time
and depth of sediment deposit, minimizes the
combined costs of construction, operation and
maintenance (Butler et al., 2003). The most
important aspect of this definition would be its
relation to an economic solution, viz if allowing a
minimum amount of deposit were to accrue less
costs, there would be no need for the sewer to be
totally free of sediment deposits. Therefore, by
considering a minimum deposition depth and by
reducing the gradient required for sediment
transport, it will be possible to increase the
deposit transport capacity.
Novak and Nalluri (1975) have expressed the
effective factors regarding sediment transport in
terms of relative relations, as the parameters of
transport and flow for circular and rectangular
channels. May (1982) developed a theoretical
bed-load transport model which is based on forces
acting on individual sediment particles
transported at the limit of deposition. May et al.
(1989) continued these studies using larger
diameter pipes.
Mayerle et al. (1991) did studies on the
sedimentation in condition of half-filled flow in a
smooth tube and in a rectangular channel. Nalluri
and Ab. Ghani (1996) presented new design

Received: 12 Jan. 2013; Revised: 20 May 2013; Accepted: 27 May 2013

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 Engineering Applications of Computational Fluid Mechanics Vol. 7, No. 3 (2013)

criteria for a clean pipe (non-deposition). They the results of some recently applied methods were
compared their equation with the criterion of compared and their application to prediction of
minimum velocity of 0.75 m/s, concluding that sediment transport was evaluated.
the minimum velocity criterion over-designs the
slope for small diameters (D < 500 mm) and 2. SEDIMENT TRANSPORT EQUATIONS
under-designs the slope for larger pipe diameters.
May et al. (1996) considered the experimental Novak and Nalluri (1975) proposed the following
data of others (Ackers et al., 1996) and their own equation by applying the parameter of transport
experiments and modified the general form of the CV VR
( ) and the parameter of flow
equation that was proposed by May et al. (1989).
(Ss  1)gd 50
3
Their regression equations provide an acceptable
estimation of the sediment transport. However, no (Ss  1)d 50
(  ) for both circular and rectangular
exact equation or theory has yet been developed. RS
In the past decade, because of the soft computing channels:
methods capability for analyzing complex
problems, the popularity of using these methods   11.6 2.04 (1)
has enhanced the research in various fields of in which V is the limited velocity, R the hydraulic
science, especially in water resources engineering, radius, d50 the average size of the sediment, SS the
water structures and hydrology (Lin et al., 2006; relative density, g the gravitational acceleration, S
Tayfur and Guldal, 2006; Kisi, 2008; the pipe slope and CV the volumetric
Muzzammil, 2008; Wang et al., 2009; Wu et al., concentration.
2010; Bonakdari et al., 2011; Baghalian et al., The rate of sediment concentration was from 20
2012). The ANN technique is one of the most to 2400 (ppm). By using the resistance formula of
popular soft computing methods. Jain (2001) used Darcy-Weisbach, S=λsV2/8gR, and classifying
ANN to introduce the relation of sediment density parts and changing the Froude number, it is
in Mississippi river and proved that it gives more possible to rewrite Eq. (1) as follows:
reliable results in comparison with other methods.
Cigizoglu (2002) compared the results from ANN V d
 1.77C1V/ 3 ( 50 ) 1 / 3 s2 / 3 (2)
with sediment rating curves to predict the density g(SS  1)d 50 R
of suspended sediments. Kisi (2004) made use of
different ANN methods to predict the same and in which λs is the total friction factor. Mayerle et
declared that MLP offered the best results. Kisi al. (1991) conducted their experiments on circular
(2005) employed ANN to model the suspended and rectangular channels, presenting their formula
sediment load of flow. He also used sediment as follows:
rating curves and a multi-regression model to V d
predict the sediment load and showed that ANN  4.32C0V.23 ( 50 ) 0.68 (3)
produced the best results. Raghuwanshi et al. gd 50 (SS  1) R
(2006) developed ANN models to predict both
Ab. Ghani (1993) used dimensional analysis of
runoff and sediment yields on a daily and weekly
parameters, effective for sediment transport in a
basis for a small agricultural watershed, also
non-deposition state. The expression of the non-
applying regression models for the same. In all
dimensional parameters is found as below:
cases, the ANN models performed better than the
models based on linear regression. To evaluate V R
the relations of total sediment load transport and  f (CV , Dgr , , S ) (4)
g(SS  1)d 50 d 50
to predict the concentration of sediment load in
rivers, Yang et al. (2009) applied ANN and The above equation expresses the effects of the
Memarian and Balasundram (2012) used it to sediment concentration, the size of deposits at
estimate sediment load in a tropical watershed. depth of the flow and the size of the pipe on
Azamathulla et al. (2012) applied the adaptive minimum deposit velocity as a function of non-
neuro-fuzzy inference system (ANFIS), a dimensional numbers. Ab. Ghani (1993)
combination of neural network and fuzzy logic, as presented the following equation for transport of
an alternative approach to estimate the bed load bed?-load at limit of deposition by using the
transport in sewers. The main objective of this regression equation:
study is to predict the sediment transport in pipes
V 0.09 0.21 d 50 0.53 0.21
by using ANN, also an experimental investigation  3.08Dgr CV ( )  s (5)
was conducted to verify the ANN results. Finally, gd 50 R

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 Engineering Applications of Computational Fluid Mechanics Vol. 7, No. 3 (2013)
s  1.13D0gr.01C0V.020c.98 (6)
in which Dgr (=d50((SS-1)/ν2)1/3) is the size of non-
dimensional particles, ∆(=SS-1) is the relative
mass of sediment in water and  C is the clean
water friction factor in the canal. May et al.
(1996) proposed the following equations:
D 2 d 50 0.6
CV  3.03 102 ( )( )
A D
(7)
V2 V
( )1.5 (1  t )4
g ( S S  1) D V a  f ( p i w j,i  b i )
y 0.47
Vt  0.125[ g ( SS  1)d50 ]0.5[ ] (8)
d50
By reducing the parameters effective on transport
of the bed-load, Vongvisessmojai et al. (2010)
conducted their experiments on two PVC pipes of
100 and 150 mm in diameter. By applying the
regression analysis for sediment transport in bed-
load state, they presented the following equations:
0.616
V d
 4.31C0V.226  (9)
gd (s  1) R
0.542
V d
 3.57C0V.21  (10)
gd (s  1)  y
3. ARTIFICIAL NEURAL NETWORKS
The concept of using Artificial Neural Networks
(ANN) is not new, but its application began from
about 1946 by a person named Hu, who used it to
predict the weather. However, he did not have
much success as he had no computer and relied
solely on his own calculations (Beals and
Jackson, 1998). ANN is composed of an
interconnected group of neurons, which can
provide outputs by processing the input data.
Neural networks are generally created in a regular
and layered form. The first layer which receives
the input data is the input layer. The intermediary
layers are the hidden layers and the last layer that
provides the output for the model is the output
layer. The simplest and most conventional type of
a neural network, applied in many fields of
engineering including the present study, is the
Multi-Layer Perceptron (MLP), which utilizes the
backward propagation error for training.
In this network the number of neurons in the input
layer is equal to the number of synapses in the
output. The accurate and actual analysis to find
the number of neurons in the intermediary layer is
384
generally very complicated. However, it can be
claimed that the number of neurons in the
intermediary layer is a function of the input
synapses as well as the maximum number of
zones in the input space, linearly distinguishable.
For this reason, the number of neurons in the
hidden layer is generally obtained experimentally.
Each neuron is connected to those in the next
layer via its output but not to the neurons in its
own layer. The output of each neuron is defined
by the following equation:
n
(11)
i 1
in which wj,i is the weight of connection between
neuron Mj of the mentioned layer with the Mi of
the previous layer, underlining the importance of
the connection between two neurons in
contiguous layers, bj is the Bias weight of neuron
Mj, pi the output of neuron Mi and f is the
threshold function of neuron Mj. The transfer
functions usually have a sigmoid shape (Rezaeian
Zadeh et al., 2010; Jalalkamali and Jalalkamali,
2011; Chang and Liao, 2012; Dorofki et al., 2012;
Moharrampour et al., 2012), defined for any
variable as:
1
f (12)
1  exp( z)
In ANN the models are mostly prepared in two
stages. The first stage is the training of the
network, which is realized on the basis of the
number of measured data (80% in this study). In
the next stage the data are validated by 20 - 30%.
In modeling with the help of ANN and depending
on the input variables and their relation with the
intended parameters (which are modeled), around
10% of the data are used for testing, evaluating
the model and estimating the critical points such
as the reference points, i.e. the maximum or
minimum points of a curve. It is obvious that
these data should not have been used during
training and validation processes. Fig. 1 shows
the architecture of the network used in this paper.
Fig. 1 Architecture of network used.
 Engineering Applications of Computational Fluid Mechanics Vol. 7, No. 3 (2013)
4. ADAPTIVE NEURO-FUZZY
INFERENCE SYSTEM (ANFIS)
Fuzzy logic is a system based on condition-result
regulations which figures out the effects of the
input variables on the output variables by the use
of linguistic variables concept and the fuzzy
decision making procedure. The base of fuzzy
regulations, which are a complex of logic
regulations expressing the relationship between
fuzzy variables, is considered as the most
important part of a fuzzy system (Gopakumar and
Mujumdar, 2007). Since the given data always
have definite values, a fuzzy-maker has been used
in order to change them into a fuzzy variable, and
a non-fuzzy maker has been used in order to
convert the results of a fuzzy system into definite
values. One of the most important types of fuzzy
rules is the Takagi-Sugeno (TS) system, which
represents the conclusions by functions (Takagi
and Sugeno, 1985; Bardossy and Disse, 1993; Sen
and Altunkaynak, 2006). A rule of this mode will
be:
If x1 is A1 and x2 is A2
(13)
THEN y  f ( x1 , x2 ,..., xn )
If the fuzzy logic system has 2 inputs (x, y) and 1
output (y), the ordinary regulation set of the fuzzy
system for first grade TS fuzzy model would be in
the form of two "if-then" laws, as follows:
Rule1:if x is A1 and y is B1
(14)
THEN f1  p1 x  q1 y  r1
Rule2 :if x is A2 and y is B2
(15)
THEN f 2  p2 x  q2 y  r2
Fig. 2a shows the reasoning mechanism for TS
model and Fig. 2b shows the ANFIS
corresponding to this fuzzy logic.
First layer: Each node in this layer is an
Adaptive node accompanied by Node Function.
O1,i  Ai (x),.....for.....i  1,2,...or (16)
O1,i  Bi2 ( y),.....for.....i  3,4 (17)
x, y: Input to node i
Ai, Bi-1: Linguistic label which belongs to Node i.
O1,i: Membership grade.
For membership function “A”, a triangular,
trapezoidal, urceolate or Gauss type membership
function could be selected. For example the
urceolate function is defined as follows:
385
1
A (x)  (18)
x  ci 2 b i
1 | |
ai
in which ai, bi and ci are the parameters of the
function that by varying each , the urceolate
membership function also changes proportionally
and this in fact brings about different forms of a
membership function for the fuzzy set. The
existing parameters in this layer are introduced as
premise parameters.
Second layer: Nodes which are placed in this
layer are considered as node II, the output of
which is calculated as follows:
wi
O 2,1  w i  .., i  1,2 (19)
w1  w 2
Third layer: Nodes which are placed in this layer
are nodes with title “N”. The ith node calculates
the ratio of the firepower of ith law to the fire
power of the sum of laws, as follows:
wi
O3,1  w i  .., i  1,2 (20)
w1  w 2
For simplification, the output of this layer is
presented as “Normalized firepower”.
Fourth layer: Each "i" node in this layer is a
comparative node with the node functions as
follows:
O4,i  w i fi  w i (pi x  qi y  ri ) (21)
O5,1   w i f i 
wf i i
(22)
i
i w i i
5. DATA COLLECTION
Ab. Ghani (1993) conducted tests on three pipes,
sized 154, 305 and 450 mm in diameter. He used
all the three sizes for smooth rigid beds and the
305 mm pipe for the rough rigid beds. For weak
boundary conditions, he used the 450 mm pipe.
The maximum input discharge was equivalent to
20.5 l/s and the maximum slope of the flume 0.06.
The limits of the data in these tests are shown in
Table 1. The data used in this study relate to 137
tests for transport of the load on the bed at
deposition level, 80% of which (109 samples)
were used for training, 10% (14 samples) for
evaluation and the remaining 10% for testing.
Vongvisessomjai et al. (2010) conducted their
tests on two pipes of 100 and 150 mm in diameter
and 16 m in length. Tests of Vongvisessomjai’s et
al. (2010) were conducted in deposited state.
Table 2 shows the range of the data used in their
tests.
 Engineering Applications of Computational Fluid Mechanics Vol. 7, No. 3 (2013)
Fig. 2 (a) Reasoning mechanism for Takagi-Sugeno model; (b) Scenario of ANFIS model. .
6. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Most researchers considered the effective factors
in sediment transport as: limited velocity, VS, the
size of non-dimensional particles, Dgr, the
hydraulic radius, R, the average size of sediment,
d50, the relative mass of sediment in water, SS, the
total friction factor, λS, and the friction factor of
clean water in canal, λc. To assess the effects of
these parameters on the results of the ANN
presented, we have considered 5 different
situations (Table 3) in order to select the best
model. Also in Table 3, the ANN results are
compared with the ANFIS model obtained by
Azamathulla et al. (2012) to show the high
precision of the ANN model presented.
The noteworthy point in using data in ANN is that
the data must be normalized before network
training. This will bring about the uniformity of
the data values for the network and increase the
speed and accuracy of the network. Furthermore,
for the training data the smallest and the largest
data are used for obtaining results from the
network, which are more accurate than the ones in
the situation where the training data do not
include these two quantities. The following
equation is used to normalize the data:
386
x i  x min
x̂  (23)
x max  x min
The results of validating the data presented by
ANN are shown in Table 3. As shown, the
equation in row 1 (R2 = 0.98 and RMSE =
0.0011) give the best results. Fig. 3 shows the
effect of different parameters in calculating
V/√(∆gd50) and predicts the results of the given
phases using ANN.
According to the results from Table 3, showing a
very small difference among the 5 cases, case 1
offers the best results. Based on this, one may
conclude that using the size of dimensionless
particles (Dgr) causes no significant effect on
calculating V/√(∆gd50). As known, the only
variable parameter in estimating (Dgr) is the
average particle size (d50) which effect is
considered on the parameter d50/R. Considering
Fig. 3 and the results from Table 3, one may
understand that the bed friction coefficient (λs)
produces the main effect on the results and
consequently offers the least exactness. It is
recognized from Fig. 4 that, in general, the given
results seem accurate in every condition, as the
smallest correlation coefficient is 0.92, and it
shows the results of predicting sediment transfer
by using ANN in the best given condition (case
1).
 Engineering Applications of Computational Fluid Mechanics Vol. 7, No. 3 (2013)

Table 1 Range of Ab. Ghani (1993) data. Table 2 Range of Vongvisessomjai et al. (2010) data.

d50 V R CV d50 V y R Cv
No λs No
(mm) (m/s) (m) (m) (ppm)
(mm) (m/s) (m) (ppm)
1 0.97 0.821 0.276 0.0429 320 1 0.2 0.237 0.03 0.017 4
2 0.97 0.517 0.0256 0.0749 14 2 0.2 0.336 0.03 0.017 22
3 0.97 0.613 0.0243 0.0641 49 3 0.2 0.433 0.03 0.025 24
4 0.97 0.697 0.0253 0.0585 125 4 0.2 0.326 0.03 0.012 42
5 0.97 0.844 0.0271 0.0478 262 5 0.3 0.237 0.03 0.017 6
6 0.97 0.973 0.0227 0.0525 379 6 0.3 0.336 0.06 0.017 29
7 2 0.675 0.0284 0.0508 161 7 0.3 0.464 0.06 0.028 30
8 2 0.516 0.0251 0.075 13 8 0.3 0.568 0.03 0.028 71
9 0.43 0.237 0.03 0.017 6
9 2 0.614 0.0238 0.064 61
10 0.43 0.336 0.06 0.017 34
10 2 0.693 0.0257 0.0588 129
11 0.43 0.464 0.03 0.028 35
11 2 0.84 0.0277 0.0479 318 12 0.43 0.411 0.06 0.017 79
12 2 0.699 0.0294 0.033 318 13 0.43 0.568 0.03 0.028 83
13 2 0.997 0.0218 0.0611 235 14 0.2 0.247 0.03 0.018 4
14 4.2 0.671 0.0294 0.051 252 15 0.2 0.349 0.05 0.018 21
15 4.2 0.821 0.0277 0.0429 437 16 0.2 0.466 0.03 0.028 25
16 4.2 0.694 0.0308 0.0364 562 17 0.2 0.427 0.03 0.018 46
17 4.2 0.802 0.0281 0.0472 419 18 0.3 0.247 0.06 0.018 5
18 4.2 0.57 0.0256 0.0725 37 19 0.3 0.362 0.06 0.032 7
19 4.2 0.519 0.0258 0.0748 15 20 0.3 0.511 0.03 0.032 31
20 4.2 0.69 0.0268 0.0589 207 21 0.3 0.427 0.06 0.018 57
21 4.2 0.831 0.0283 0.0482 542 22 0.3 0.626 0.06 0.032 74
22 4.2 0.69 0.0301 0.0333 586 23 0.43 0.247 0.03 0.018 8
23 4.2 1 0.0216 0.0609 313 24 0.43 0.362 0.06 0.032 9
24 5.7 0.669 0.0291 0.0511 254 25 0.43 0.511 0.06 0.032 40
25 5.7 0.806 0.0291 0.0434 662 26 0.43 0.427 0.03 0.018 69
26 5.7 0.849 0.0267 0.0564 366 27 0.43 0.626 0.06 0.032 90
27 5.7 0.705 0.0296 0.036 617 Min 0.2 0.237 0.03 0.012 4
28 5.7 0.798 0.0286 0.0473 537 Max 0.43 0.626 0.06 0.032 90
29 5.7 0.573 0.0253 0.0724 31
30 5.7 0.691 0.0303 0.0333 745 The results of the empirical relations obtained by
31 5.7 0.971 0.0231 0.0525 443 linear regression, and also those obtained by ANN
32 8.3 0.844 0.0271 0.0566 516 are shown in Table 4. Based on this Table, it can
33 8.3 0.688 0.0316 0.0366 867 be shown that Eq. (12) with the average relative
34 8.3 0.788 0.0294 0.0477 705 error of 14.73% has the least error, and also that
35 8.3 0.571 0.0252 0.0725 30 the error of the empirical relations reaches up to
36 8.3 0.824 0.0289 0.0485 765 60% in some cases. Eq. (2) has more changes, so
37 8.3 0.678 0.0316 0.0337 923 the minimum of its errors is 1.7% and the
38 8.3 0.95 0.025 0.0532 837 maximum 56.94%. It can be seen that the results
39 8.3 0.974 0.0235 0.0619 583 obtained by ANN are in appropriate accordance
40 8.3 0.486 0.0158 0.076 0.759 with the experimental data and the average of
Min 0.97 0.486 0.0158 0.033 0.759 relative errors by equalizing is 7.31%, offering
Max 8.3 1 0.276 0.076 923 less error than by the other methods.
Table 3 Study of effects of different parameters on reducing errors of presented model.

Dependent variables Independent variables R2 ANN RMSE ANN R2 ANFIS RMSE ANFIS
1 V/√(∆gd50) d50/R, λs, Dgr, Cv 0.98 0.0011 0.98 0.0024
2 V/√(∆gd50) d50/R, λs, Dgr 0.94 0.037 0.85 2.3765
3 V/√(∆gd50) d50/R, λs, Cv 0.95 0.067 0.89 1.458
4 V/√(∆gd50) d50/R, Dgr, Cv 0.92 0.07 0.93 0.1489
5 V/√(∆gd50) λs, Dgr, Cv 0.97 0.052 0.96 0.0567

387
 Engineering Applications of Computational Fluid Mechanics Vol. 7, No. 3 (2013)

(a) Case 1 of Table 3 (b) Case 2 of Table 3

(c) Case 3 of Table 3 (d) Case 4 of Table 3

(e) Case 5 of Table 3

Fig.3 Studying different parameters to predict dimensionless V/√(∆gd50).

Table 4 Comparison between ANN and sediment transport equations with experimental data of Ab. Ghani (1993).

No Exp ANN Eq. 2 Eq. 3 Eq. 5 Eq. 7 Eq. 9 Eq. 10

1 1.53 1.69 2.03 2.22 2.05 1.93 1.87 2.04
2 9.38 8.99 9.55 12.18 11.24 10.72 10.8 10.85
3 7.45 7.01 6.11 9.63 8.78 7.95 7.9 8.13
4 4.73 4.92 3.79 7.33 6.59 5.59 5.62 5.65
5 3.44 3.66 4.36 3.93 3.80 3.71 3.64 3.7
6 1.91 2.04 2.53 2.34 2.40 1.78 1.76 1.94
7 4.77 5.36 2.37 7.69 6.51 6.06 6.12 6.07
8 5.61 6.25 2.41 8.07 6.75 6.41 6.44 6.5
9 3.44 3.02 2.67 4.89 4.23 3.93 3.85 3.96
10 2.59 2.74 2.70 3.51 3.07 3.05 2.98 2.95
11 2.69 2.93 3.05 3.36 3.01 3.15 3.18 3.22
12 2.22 2.25 2.46 2.86 2.55 2.51 2.43 2.55
13 2.65 2.70 3.11 3.22 2.91 2.93 2.98 3.04
14 2.62 2.32 3.62 2.99 2.79 2.95 2.89 2.92

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 Engineering Applications of Computational Fluid Mechanics Vol. 7, No. 3 (2013)
Fig. 4 Predicted non-dimensional amount of
V/√(∆gd50) against experimental data
(Training).
Fig. 5 Comparison between ANN and relation of
sediment transport in limit of deposition for
bed load with data of Ab. Ghani (1993).
Fig.6 Comparison between ANN and relations of
sediment transport in limit of deposition for
bed load with data of Vongvisessmojai et al.
(2010).
Fig. 4 compares the relations of sediment
transport at the limit of deposition for the bed
load with the Ab. Ghani (1993) data. The
horizontal axis of Froude number in Fig. 5 was
drawn from the experimental results obtained
from Ab. Ghani (1993) data and the vertical axis
389
of the Froude number was obtained by the given
relations.
According to Fig. 5, it can be shown that for
Froude numbers less than ~ 3, the relations (7),
(5) and (3) presented almost similar results,
having reasonable agreement with the
experimental data. For higher Froude numbers,
the result of Eq. (7) is more suitable in
comparison with the other equations. Eq. (2) has
larger errors in most cases and the errors are more
than 50% in some cases. It can be seen that the
obtained results from Eq. (7) and ANN for Froude
numbers less than 4 are almost equal to and
consistent with the Ab. Ghani (1993) data. As the
Froude number increases, the accuracy of the
results obtained by ANN increases when
compared with Eq. (7).
Fig. 6 compares the ANN results and the
sediment transport equations with the
Vongvisessmojai et al. (2010) data. It can be
observed that the ANN results and the equations
proposed by Vongvisessmojai et al. (2010) (Eqs.
(9) and (10)) return the best results. At some
points, Eq. (10) has large errors. Although Eq. (9)
returns good results, the ANN model gives greater
accuracy as confirmed by Table 5. It should be
noted that Eq. (9) returns acceptable results only
for the Vongvisessmojai et al. (2010) data, while
for Froude numbers of over 3 its errors increase
for the Ab. Ghani (1993) data, , whereas the
ANN returns the best results for both sets of data.
7. CONCLUSIONS
Sediment transport in a pipe is a complex
phenomenon. In this study, a significantly
improved model for predicting sediment transport
is presented, by using the Artificial Neural
Network. The ANN model presented here can
predict it as close to actual measurements as
possible. To overcome the complexities of
calculation of the sediment transport and to
consider also the effective parameters, this study
demonstrates that ANN predicts the sediment
transport in pipes with good accuracy. The
adequate adhesion factors demonstrate the good
conformity that ANN has with the measured data.
The comparison between the experimental results
and empirical relations show the same
comparable results for Froude numbers of less
than 3. Also the results show that the error
occured by ANN is in the bounds of the minimum
relative error. Among empirical relations, Eq.
(12) agrees comparably better than the others with
the experimental results. Therefore, with the use
of ANN, the sediment transport in a sewage
 Engineering Applications of Computational Fluid Mechanics Vol. 7, No. 3 (2013)

Table 5 Comparison between ANN and sediment transport equations with experimental data of Vongvisessmojai et al.
(2010).

No Exp ANN Eq. 2 Eq. 3 Eq. 5 Eq. 7 Eq. 9 Eq. 10

1 4.16 4.19 6.26 5.08 4.8 4.24 4.00 3.97
2 5.73 5.65 11.33 6.89 6.48 7.30 5.50 6.50
3 4.82 4.90 10.62 6.08 5.61 6.15 4.89 7.03
4 2.84 2.85 5.55 3.31 3.24 2.87 2.74 2.85
5 4.34 4.25 6.49 5.28 4.95 4.84 4.15 3.98
6 6.13 6.20 11.27 7.73 6.96 8.23 6.04 7.41
7 7.50 7.40 14.62 9.26 8.18 8.89 7.21 6.63
8 3.54 3.50 6.11 4.22 4.03 4.86 3.40 4.86
9 5.19 5.17 9.39 6.74 5.85 5.17 5.23 5.22
10 6.13 6.18 13.72 7.39 6.65 8.59 5.89 8.10
11 2.96 2.94 6.39 3.68 3.55 3.56 3.03 3.03
12 4.34 4.27 9.06 5.59 4.93 4.41 4.44 4.52
13 6.12 6.18 14.86 7.88 6.70 6.20 6.21 6.19
14 5.12 5.16 12.97 6.04 5.53 6.03 4.93 4.76

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