This paper presents a comparison of different fractional bed-material load computation methods in sand-bed channels. These methods include the direct computation by size fraction approach of Einstein, Laursen and Toffaleti; the bed material fraction (BMF) approach using equations of Engelund and Hansen, Ackers and White, Yang, and Karim's modified BMF method; and the transport capacity fraction (TCF) approach using the transport capacity distribution functions of Karim and Kennedy, Li, and Wu and Molinas. Over 150 sets of flume and field data in the sand size range containing a total of 1007 data points are used to evaluate and compare the accuracy of these methods. Statistical analysis and graphical comparison are utilized to demonstrate the performance and variations in different methods.
Overall, the Einstein method underpredicts the transport rate for finer sizes and overpredicts for the coarser sizes, while the other methods overestimate the finer fractions and underestimate the coarser fractions. The Wu and Molinas method, which was developed to account for these deficiencies, is shown to significantly improve fractional bed-material load computations. The Karim and Kennedy method is also found to be applicable.