SRICOS: Prediction of scour rate in cohesive soils at bridge piers Academic Article uri icon

abstract

  • A new method called SRICOS is proposed to predict the scour depth z versus time t around a cylindrical bridge pier of diameter D founded in clay. The steps involved are: (1) taking samples at the bridge pier site; (2) testing them in an erosion function apparatus to obtain the scour rate versus the hydraulic shear stress applied ; (3) predicting the maximum shear stress (max), which will be induced around the pier by the water flowing at 0 before the scour hole starts to develop; (4) using the measured versus curve to obtain the initial scour rate (i) corresponding to (max); (5) predicting the maximum depth of scour z(max) for the pier; (6) using (i) and z(max) to develop the hyperbolic function describing the scour depth z versus time t curve; and (7) reading the z versus t curve at a time corresponding to the duration of the flood to find the scour depth that will develop around that pier. A new apparatus is developed to measure the versus t curve of step 2, a series of advanced numerical simulations are performed to develop an equation for the (max) value of step 3, and a series of flume tests are performed to develop an equation for the z(max) value of step 5. The method is evaluated by comparing predictions and measurements in 42 flume experiments.

published proceedings

  • JOURNAL OF GEOTECHNICAL AND GEOENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING

altmetric score

  • 3

author list (cited authors)

  • Briaud, J. L., Ting, F., Chen, H. C., Gudavalli, R., Perugu, S., & Wei, G. S.

citation count

  • 235

complete list of authors

  • Briaud, JL||Ting, FCK||Chen, HC||Gudavalli, R||Perugu, S||Wei, GS

publication date

  • April 1999