A wide range of sediment grain sizes (from fine sand to pebbles) can be found in gravel-bed rivers. In fully alluvial systems, most of the size fractions (often differentiated into fine and coarse grains) can be actively transported during flood events. Sediment can be transported as bedload, suspended load, or can migrate inside the bed layer. For coarse grain sizes, the predominant transport process is bedload, whereas the influence of suspended load is negligible. In addition to bedload, fine grains can also be transported within the water column, by being kept in suspension by turbulence generated near the channel bed. The resultant turbulent flow must be equal or exceed the particle fall velocity to sustain suspended sediment load. Mobility and composition of the bed (e.g., grain size distribution, porosity) can change drastically during a flood event. In this gravel-bed study, we consider sand being transported as bedload only. Coarse grains can create interstitial spaces (pore space), that finer grains can occupy. The porosity of a channel bed will thus depend on the size and the heterogeneity of a sediment mixture (Standish & Borger, 1979). Two different processes govern the infiltration of sand for a gravel matrix, namely static sorting and kinetic sieving. Static sorting of sand into an immobile gravel framework Abstract Sand (i.e., < 2 mm) infiltration into a gravel bed is recognized to affect sediment dynamics of coarser fractions (i.e., entrainment and transport rate), near-bed velocities, bed morphology, and to pose significant engineering and ecological issues. Local hydraulics, sediment dynamics, and sand infiltration into the gravel matrix are related and mutually affect each other in gravel-bed rivers. However, relatively little research has been done to explore sediment dynamics and sand infiltration in a mobile gravel-bed under unsteady flow conditions. In the present study, we experimentally simulated three hydrographs of different durations of rising and falling limbs, and monitored sand infiltration over beds with a coarse and a fine grain size distribution. Results confirmed that the addition of sand enhances sediment dynamics. Moreover, the shape of the rising limb of the hydrograph was responsible for altering identified sand infiltration processes and bedload rate. Short time-to-peak floods (i.e., short time from the start to the peak of the hydrograph) experienced higher sediment transport rates during the falling limb than the rising limb of the hydrograph, favoring sand infiltration. In contrast, long time-to-peak floods (i.e., long time from the start to the peak of the hydrograph) experienced higher sediment transport rates during the rising limb than the falling limb of the hydrograph, resulting in reduced sand infiltration.Plain Language Summary Understanding how sediment is transported during floods is important, as their movement affects channel morphology and river ecology. Fine sediment can infiltrate gravel bed-rivers, a process that depends on the local hydraulics, the size...