An Experimental Study of Local Scour Depth Around Bridge Abutments

Evangelia Farsirotou, Nikolaos Xafoulis

The current research work presents laboratory experimental results on local scour around vertical-wall bridge abutments in uniform sediments under clear water scour conditions. The study reports an extensive experimental investigation, that was performed in an experimental model in the Technological Educational Institute of Thessaly, whose findings are used to describe the effects of various parameters on local scour depth evolution. The experimental measurements of scouring depths were obtained in the vicinity of the construction for different inflow discharges and flow duration. The expected bed erosion and the maximum scour depth at the upstream edge of the construction are satisfactorily simulated by the experimental procedure. Three different sizes of the abutment width normal to the flow direction were used in order to investigate the impact of this parameter to local scour variation.

All experimental test case results described in this work are relevant to unsteady, two-dimensional, quasi or fully three-dimensional flow calculations for viscous flows in open channels with sediment transport. All the experimental results are graphically presented and may be used to assist in the development of new and the verification and refinement of existing river numerical simulation models for computing free-surface flows with movable beds, specifically around bridge abutments and generally on bed level variation due to sediment transport.