Experimental Study of Inclined Bridge Pier Scouring

  • Fakhar Muhammad Abbas Department of Civil Engineering, University of Engineering and Technology, Taxila, Pakistan.
  • Usman Ali Naeem Department of Civil Engineering, University of Engineering and Technology, Taxila, Pakistan.
  • Usman Ghani Department of Civil Engineering, University of Engineering and Technology, Taxila, Pakistan.
  • Amina - Department of Civil Engineering, University of Engineering and Technology, Taxila, Pakistan.
  • Talat Farid Ahmad Principal Scientific Officer, NARC, Islamabad, Pakistan.

Abstract

The bridges are one of important structures in any country. The failure of bridges occurs due to many factors including design flaws and manufacturing construction errors. Among all imperfections scouring around the pier is the most detrimental. So, the estimation of local scouring around a bridge pier is of fundamental importance for the safe design of bridges. Although numerous researches have been done on local scouring around a single bridge pier. The present study investigates the effect of angle of inclination of dual bridge pier configuration on local scouring around bridge piers. Principally rectangular shaped dual bridge piers were installed in sand bed of laboratory flume at angle of inclination of 0°,7°,12°,15° and 19° with vertical respectively. Three different flow rates 9, 14 and 18L/sec were considered during each trial. The duration of each trial was kept around 2 hours. The scour depth was measured separately around both piers with the help of point gauge under clear water condition. The value of scour depth around upstream pier was larger as compared to downstream pier because of the lower strength of horseshoe vortices around downstream pier. From the experimental results, it can be concluded that there is an inverse relationship between the angle of inclination and scour depth, an increase in the angle of inclination leads to decrease in scour depth around both piers. The value of scour depth was maximum when piers were at 0° and minimum at 19°. It was also found that scour depth increases with the increase in flow rate. 

Published
Oct 1, 2020
How to Cite
ABBAS, Fakhar Muhammad et al. Experimental Study of Inclined Bridge Pier Scouring. Mehran University Research Journal of Engineering and Technology, [S.l.], v. 39, n. 4, p. 859-870, oct. 2020. ISSN 2413-7219. Available at: <https://publications.muet.edu.pk/index.php/muetrj/article/view/1864>. Date accessed: 23 dec. 2024. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.22581/muet1982.2004.18.
This is an open Access Article published by Mehran University of Engineering and Technolgy, Jamshoro under CCBY 4.0 International License