A GRADUATE REPORT On

SCOURING AROUND BRIDGE PIER

PREPARED BY CHANDRAKANT VINAYAKRAO PATIL Of M.TECH. (Sem. III), WATER RESOURCES ENGINEERING. (Roll No.: P10WR325) GUIDED BY: Dr. P.L.Patel Dr. S.M.Yadav

DEPARTMENT OF CIVIL ENGINEERING SARDAR VALLABHBHAI NATIONAL INSTTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY SURAT- 395 007, GUJARAT 2011-2012

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CERTIFICATE This is to certify that the graduate report on SCOURING AROUND BRIDGE PIER is prepared and presented by Mr. CHANDRAKANT VINAYAKRAO PATIL Roll no. P10WR325 of M.Tech. (Sem. III) Water Resources Engineering. His work is satisfactory during academic year 2011-2012.

Dr. P.L.PATEL PROFESSOR CED, SVNIT

Dr.S.M.YADAV ASSO.PROFESSOR CED, SVNIT

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CONTENTS

Sr.No.

Description

Page No.

Acknowledgement

Introduction

Literature Review

Type of scour

Bridge Scour

10

Mechanism of scour

18

Factors affecting scour

Control of scour

Design of scour

Conclusion

10

Notation

24

11

References

25

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I would like to take this as an opportunity to express my deep gratitude towards my guide Dr. P.L.Patel, Professor and Dr.S.M.Yadav, Associate Professor, also my sincere thanks to our Water Resources Engineering Section SVNIT Surat and acknowledge the help received from them during the course of the G.R. without his tireless efforts and encouragement it would have been difficult to complete the report. I would also like to acknowledge the cooperation and help extended to me by other members of the SVNIT Surat, for providing me with adequate infrastructure and the right environment for my Graduate Report.

Last but not the least a special thanks to my family and friends for providing the necessary encouragement and mental support for completing my report.

CHANDRAKANT VINAYAKRAO PATIL M.Tech (3rd Sem.) Water Resource Engineering P10WR325

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LIST OF TABLE Sr.No. 1 2 Description Page No.

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LIST OF FIGURES

Sr.No. 1

Description

Page No.

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1 . INTRODUCTION Scour is the local lowering of the stream bed around a hydraulic structure. Water normally
flows faster around piers and abutments making them susceptible to local scour. Stream channel instability resulting in river erosion and changing angles-of-attack can contribute to bridge scour. Debris can also have a substantial impact on bridge scour in several ways. A build-up of material can reduce the size of the waterway under a bridge causing contraction scour in the channel. A build-up of debris on the abutment can increase the obstruction area and increase local scour. Debris can deflect the water flow, changing the angle of attack, increasing local scour. Debris might also shift the entire channel around the bridge causing increased water flow and scour in another location.

During flooding, although the foundations of a bridge might not suffer damage, the fill behind abutments may scour. This type of damage typically occurs with single-span bridges with vertical wall abutments. An accurate estimate of scour depth below stream-bed during design is important since this determines foundation levels of the bridge elements such as pier, abutment, guide bank, spurs, breakwaters, etc. Huber (1991) has reported that since 1950 over 500 bridges have failed in U.S.A. and majority of failures were due to scour of foundation material. Such failure is primarily due to three reasons: 1) Inadequate knowledge about scour phenomenon when the bridge was constructed. 2) Inadequate data & knowledge about design flood ; and 3) Increase in loading on bridges due to increase in the size of trucks & frequency of loading.

Under prediction of design scour depths can result in costly bridge failures and possibly in the loss of lives; while over prediction can result in increasing construction cost of bridge. For these reasons, proper prediction of the amount of scour anticipated at a bridge crossing during design conditions is essential.

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2. LITERATURE REVIEW Gerald Muller, Rudiger Mach & Klemens Kauppert (2001) State that during construction work for an extension of an existing railway bridge pier across the river Rhine, severe scouring occurred after the placement of a sheet pile cofferdam. A physical model test was conducted at the Federal Hydraulic Research Institute in Karlsruhe, Germany. For the measurement of the scour development without protective layer, an optical measurement method out of plane projection Moir was employed in order to investigate its suitability. This technique uses the Moir effect to map surface contours which are indicated by superposition lines or fringes. The Moir fringe patterns generated by the measurements were then digitised for further analysis. The contour model revealed that, although the scouring depth did not increase significantly with time after the initial scour had formed, scour size did in fact do so. In addition, the contour model allows to map the scour extension and to determine the maximum deposition height. A 3D model of bridge pier and scour showed, in combination with photographs, the validity of the measurement technique and pointed towards the generation of a virtual environment for the representation of experimental results.

T. Esmaeili, A. A. Dehghani, A. R. Zahiri and K. Suzuk (2009) state that Due to the threedimensional flow pattern interacting with bed material, the process of local scour around bridge piers is complex. Modeling 3D flow field and scour hole evolution around a bridge pier is more feasible nowadays because the computational cost and computational time have significantly decreased. In order to evaluate local flow and scouring around a bridge pier, a completely threedimensional numerical model, SSIIM program, was used. The model solves 3-D NavierStokes equations and a bed load conservation equation. The model was applied to simulate local flow and scouring around a bridge pier in a large natural river with four piers. Computation for 1 day of flood condition was carried out to predict the maximum local scour depth. The results show that the SSIIM program can be used efficiently for simulating the scouring in natural rivers. The results also showed that among the various turbulence models, the k- model gives more reasonable results.

D. Roy & M.A. Matin (2010) state that Scour around structure is a well known problem for
engineers around the world. Most of the rivers in Bangladesh are compound and alluvial in
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nature. Pier like structures are often constructed at floodplain of compound channel, also subjected to local scour and may cause failure of structure. A compound channel of 22 m long and 20 cm deep having one adjacent floodplain of 80 cm wide with 165 cm wide main channel was constructed to conduct this study considering relative depth ratio (Y r) 0.26. General behavior of local scour at floodplain and main channel have been investigated for commonly used circular and round nose shaped structures by using three locally available bed materials with three discharges and four length-width ratios. Scour map, bed profile, velocity profile, flow intensity contour map and 3D perspective plots were analyzed for both floodplain and main channel to evaluate comparison between floodplain and main channel scour. Generally scour behavior are near about same at flood plain and main channel for different bed materials, discharges, structure shapes and length width ratio. But flow velocity and scour depth are always higher in main channel than floodplain. The scour depth around circular structure was highest as compared with Scour depth around other shapes of structures both at flood plain and main channel. Floodplain velocity distribution is associated with vortex generation as mid of channel.

Umesh C Kothyari (2007) state that Well-laid foundation is mostly provided in road and
railway bridges in India over large and medium-sized rivers. The age-old LaceyInglis method is used for estimation of the design scour depth around bridge elements such as pier, abutment, guide bank, spur and groyne. Codal provisions are seen to produce too large a scour depth around bridge elements resulting in bridge sub-structures that lead to increased construction costs. Limitations that exist in the codes of practice are illustrated in this paper using examples. The methods recently developed for estimation of the scour are described. New railway and road bridges are required to be built in large numbers in the near future across several rivers to strengthen such infrastructure in the country. It is strongly felt that provisions in the existing codes of practice for determination of design scour depth require immediate review. The present paper provides a critical note on the practices followed in India for estimating the design scour depth.

Yuan Zhai (2010) The change with time in maximum local scour depth from plane-bed to equilibrium conditions was recorded and analyzed. The experimental results include the velocity distributions of the approach flow, the records of 3-dimensional scour morphology, the width-averaged 2-dimensional longitudinal scour profiles, and the width-averaged maximum scour depths. Furthermore, in this study, the temporal development of scour on the pressurized flow river bed was experimentally studied using a physical hydraulic model. The study was performed under clear-water conditions using the uniform bed material and a 6
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gird deck. The principal objective of this research was to calculate the time development of the scour at the river bed until it reached the condition of equilibrium scour. Furthermore, in order to enlighten the underlying mechanisms responsible for the scour, the analysis of the effect of the sediment size, the open height of the bridge and the flow velocity was studied.

Chiew Yee-Meng (2008) This paper examines scour and scour countermeasures at bridge piers and abutments. Abutment scour is by far more complex than its counterpart associated with piers because of the possibility of the presence of a floodplain. In cases where the abutment ends at or near to the floodplain, it can initiate bank erosion, which clearly is an important erosion problem that is quite distinct from the customary scour at either an abutment in rivers without a floodplain or a pier. For this reason, abutment scour can be very site-specific while pier-scour is more generic in nature. They are shear failure, winnowing failure, edge failure, bedform-induced failure and beddegradation induced failure. Each failure mechanism can singly or, more likely, combine to cause the eventual breakdown of the riprap layer. The study shows that a riprap layer is vulnerable to other failure mechanisms even though it is adequately designed against shear failure, rendering it ineffective in arresting scour.

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3. TYPES OF SCOUR For engineering purposes, total scour at a river crossing is normally divided into four categories: 1) general, 2) aggradation and degradation, 3) contraction and 4) local. Local scour is further divided into pier and abutment scour.

3.1 General scour refers to mechanisms such as river meanders, tidal inlet instability, etc. General Scour is illustrated in Figure 1a. In this process, progressive erosion at the outer ends along a meandering river cause the progressive lateral shifting of the stream channel and attendant variations in water depths. General scour can result in the undermining of abutments, if certain precautionary measures such as the placement of concrete or asphaltic mats over the riverbank, and installation of abutment foundations below the lower depth of possible scour, are not taken. 3.2 Long Term Aggradation and Degradation Whereas general scour refers to bed elevation changes that result from lateral instability, aggradation and degradation is associated with the overall vertical stability of the bed. Long term aggradation and degradation refers to the change in the bed elevation over time over an entire reach of the water body. For riverine conditions, manmade or natural changes in the system may produce erosion or deposition time over the entire reach of the water body. Anything that changes the sediment supply of a river reach can impact the bed elevation at the bridge site. Examples of these changes include the erection of a dam, changes in upland drainage basin characteristics (e.g., land use changes), upstream mining in the channel, etc. Erosion must be considered in the design of stable channels or the design for local scour around bridge piers. Deposition is often undesirable since it may hinder the operation, or shorten the working life, of hydraulic structures or navigational channels. Sediment traps are specifically designed to promote the deposition of suspended material to minimize their downstream impact, e.g., on cooling water inlet works, or in water treatment plants. Similar processes exist in tidal waters. However, in general, prediction of these processes is more difficult due to the complex geometry of the flow boundaries, reversing flows, wave climate, etc. As with riverine locations, historical information about the site and the quantities that impact the sediment movement in the area are very useful in estimating future changes in bed elevation at the site.
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3.3 Contraction Scour Contraction Scour is illustrated in Figure 1b. Contraction scour occurs when a channels cross-section is reduced by natural or manmade features. Possible constrictions include the construction of long causeways to reduce bridge lengths (and costs), the placement of large (relative to the channel crosssection) piers in the channel, abutment encroachment, and the presence of The reduction of cross sectional area results in an increase in flow velocity due to conservation of flow. This may cause the condition of more sediment leaving than entering the area and thus an overall lowering of the bed in the contracted area. This process is known as contraction scour.

Figure 3.1: Types of Scour [7]

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3.4 Local scour Local abutment scour results from the obstruction to the flow at the bridge abutments at the edges of the waterway. Local piers scour is likewise the result of a flow obstruction, but one located within the flow field. Figure 1-1c shows the effect of local scour on a bridge pier. An additional mechanism, bed form propagation through the bridge site, may also play a role. Bed forms refer to the pattern of regular or irregular waves that may result from water flow over a sediment bed. These forms may propagate either in the same or in the opposite direction of the flow. Since these undulations in the sediment bed may have large amplitudes, one must also take into account their contribution to the lowering of the bed near the bridge piles. Additionally, their presence contributes to the calculation of the overall roughness of the bed, and hence the vertical structure of the flow over the bed. A net loss of sediment at the site is referred to as sediment scour or simply scour. Knowledge of the maximum scour that will occur at the abutments and piers during the life of the bridge is required for the design of the bridge foundation. 4 BRIDGE SCOUR.

The lowering of the streambed at bridge piers is referred to as bridge sediment scour or simply bridge scour.Sediment scour occurs when the amount of sediment transport leaving an area is greater than the amount of sediment entering the area. Sediment transport is divided into two categories: 1) bed load and 2) suspended load. Bed load refers to sediment particles that roll and slide in a thin layer, two sediment particle diameters, near the bed. Sediment particles suspended in the water column by turbulent fluctuations and transported with the flow is suspended load. Sediment movement is initiated when the forces acting on the particles reaches a threshold value that exceeds the forces keeping them at rest. Flows over a sediment bed exert lift and drag forces on the sediment particles. When these forces per unit area tangent to the bed (bed shear stress) exceed a critical value (critical shear stress) the sediment bed begins to move. For cohesionless sediments (e.g., sand), the critical shear stress depends on the mass density and viscosity of the water, the sediment mass density, the size and shape of the sediment particle, the bed roughness, and the local water velocity. For cohesive sediments (e.g., muds and clays) and erodible rock, additional water and sediment properties associated with the bonding of the particles also play a role. The local velocity of the water depends on many quantities including the sediment that forms the boundaries of the flow. A change in the sediment boundaries (e.g., deposition or erosion) results in a change in
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the flow and vice versa. Man-made or natural obstructions to the flow can also change flow patterns and create secondary flows. Any change in the flow can impact sediment transport and thus the scour at a bridge site.

Figure 4.1 Effects of local scour on a bridge pier.[8]

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Figure 4.2 Effects of local scour on a bridge pier.[10]

Abutment scour is by far more complex than its counterpart associated with piers because of the possibility of the presence of a floodplain. In cases where the abutment ends at or near to the floodplain, it can initiate bank erosion, which clearly is an important erosion problem that is quite distinct from the customary scour at either an abutment in rivers without a floodplain or a pier. For this reason, abutment scour can be very site-specific while pier-scour is more generic in nature. They are shear failure, winnowing failure, edge failure, bedform-induced failure and beddegradation induced failure. Each failure mechanism can singly or, more likely, combine to cause the eventual breakdown of the riprap layer. The study shows that a riprap layer is vulnerable to other failure mechanisms even though it is adequately designed against shear failure, rendering it ineffective in arresting scour.

5 MECHANISM OF SCOURING : The main mechanisms of local scour are: (1) increased mean flow velocities and pressure gradients in the vicinity of the structure; (2) the creation of secondary flows in the form of vortices; and (3) the increased turbulence in the local flow field. Two kinds of vortices may occur: 1) wake vortices, downstream of the points of flow separation on the structure; and 2)
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horizontal vortices at the bed and free surface due to stagnation pressure variations along the face of the structure and flow separation at the edge of the scour hole

Figure 5.1 Mechanism of local scour on a bridge pier.[8]

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6.FACTORS AFFECTING SCOUR: On the basis of U.P. Irrigation research Institute and published by CBIP(1975),and Breusers, Nicollet and Shen (1977) published in the Journal of Hydraulic Research of IAHR,factors affecting scour depth can be summarized as follows.[11]

1.Whether the incoming flow is clear water flow or sediment transporting flow: when u*/u*c is less than unity,clear flow occers; when it is greater than unity sediment transporting flow occurs.Other condition remaining same clear water scour is about 10% more than scour in sediment transporting flow;further clear water scour depth increases asymptotically while equilibrium scour depth in sediment transporting flow is attained in finite time.

2.Depth of flow: Meville and Sutherland(1988)have shown that when depth of flow to pier width D/b is greater than 2.6, the scour depth does not depend on the depth of flow; however for smaller depth, of flow affects the scour depth.

3.Effect of shape of Pier Nose: The shape of pier Nose affects the strength of horse-shoe vortex as well as the separation around bridge pier; hence it affects the scour depth. This effect is quantified by the coefficient Ks, which is defined as the ratio of scour around the pier of given shape to that around a cylindrical pier under identical conditions. The values of Ks have been determined on the basis of works of Tison, Laursen and Toch, Chabert and Engeldinger, Larras, Garde, and Paintal, and Garde(Garde & Kothari(1995),and are tabulated below. Table 6.1 Average values of shape coefficient Ks Shape Cylindrical Rectangular (d/b=2 to 6 ) Lenticular (2:1, 3:1, 4:1 ) Elliptical (2:1, 3:1 ) Triangular with apex angle in 1.0 1.1 to 1.25 0.93, 0.79, 0.70 1.0, 0.86 degree 0.45, 0.61, 0.75, 0.88, 0.94, 1.00 Ks

15,30,60,90,120,150

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4.Angle of inclination of pier with flow : When the pier axis makes an angle with the general direction of flow, two major changes take place in the flow field. First is that the separation pattern is drastically changed except in the case of cylindrical pier. Secondly the open width between piers, perpendicular to the flow direction is reduced as the angle of inclination is increased. This effect is incorporated by introducing a coefficient Ktheta for non circular piers, which defined as the ratio of scour around the bridge pier at a given angle of inclination to that of 0 degree angle of inclination under identical conditions. On the basis of works by Laursen, and Varzelioutis, the following values are recommended (Garde and Kothari,1995) Table : Effect of angle of inclination Q on scour for rectangular pier(-/b=60) Theta(Degree) 0 K(theta) 1.0 7.5 1.17 15 1.37 30 2.37 45 3.77

5. Opening Ratio: The opening ration alpha is defined as alpha=(B-b)/B, where B is center to center spacing of piers and B is pier diameter, or width. Analysis of extensive data by Garde et al (1987) has shown that (Dsc or Dse)/D = alpha(-0.3). Here Dsc or Dse are scour depths measured below water surface for clear water and sediment transporting conditions respectively. 6. Bed material characteristics : Scour depth is affected by relative density of sediment, its median size and geometric std. deviation. For all field problems relative density of sediment can be taken as 2.65. According to Laceys approach Dsc ~ d-1/6 wher d is the sediment size. Kothari(1989) has experimentally found that in clear water scour dsc ~d-0.31 while in sediment transporting flow dse ~d-0.07 . The effect of sediment non uniformally studied by Ettema(1980) and kothari(1989). If Ksigma is defined as Ksigma=(Equilibrium scour depth for non-uniform sediment of given d50)/ (Equilibrium scour depth for uniform sediment of given d50) Then the variation of Ktheta with geometric std deviation Sigmag of the bed material is as follows. Table : Variation of Ksigma with sigma Sigg Ksigma <=1.5 1.0 2.0 0.75 2.5 0.40 3 0.30 2.5 0.24 4 0.19 4.5 .13

Kothari(1989) has further suggested that to take into account the effect of sediment non uniformity, one can altertibvely use effective sediment size deu defined as follows:
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Deu=d50 Deu=0.925

if Sigmag<=1.124 d50 Sigma--------------

7.CONTROL OF SCOURING :[9] In the recent times, efforts have been directed towards development of methods to reduce or control scour around bridge piers, thereby reducing the cost of bridge pier foundation. These methods include (i) modification of upstream face of the pier (ii) placing additional appurtenances, and iii) use of vanes, piles etc. These methods are found to reduce scour to the extent 20 to 60 percent. However, very few of these methods have; been tested on prototype bridges and hence, information about their performance, their effect on stability of the pier and cost involved have not been reported.

From careful study of literature, it is found that various methods have been developed for protection of the bed against scour around bridge piers. Use of appurtenances has found limitations as regards effectiveness, structural design and limited experience in their use. layer of riprap(coarse, non-cohesive and non-movable material) around the pier enhances the ability of bed material around the pier to resist the erosion. On the basis of experimental data collected by theauthor, Worman, Chiew and others, a method is proposed for the design of rip rap layerto control scour around circular bridge piers.

6. CONCLUSION

7. NOTATION

8. REFERENCES
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Muller, Rudiger Mach & Klemens Kauppert (2001), Mapping of bridge pier scour with projection moir Relev des affouillements au droit des piles de pont par projection Moir , Journal Hydraulic Research, Vol. 39, NO. 5, pg. 531.
[1] Gerald

C Kothyari (2007), Indian practice on estimation of scour around bridge piersA comment , Sadhana Vol. 32, Part 3, pg. 187197. Printed in India
[2] Umesh

Esmaeili, A. A. Dehghani, A. R. Zahiri and K. Suzuk (2009), 3D Numerical Simulation of Scouring Around Bridge Piers (Case Study: Bridge 524 crosses the Tanana River), World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology 58,pg.1028-1032.
[3] T.

Roy & M.A. Matin (2010), An experimental assessment of local scour at floodplain and main channel of compound section , IABSE-JSCE Joint Conference on Advances in Bridge Engineering-II, Dhaka, Bangladesh,pg.404-416.
[4] D.

Zhai (2010), Time-dependent scour depth under Bridge-submerged flow, DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/civilengdiss/4
[5] Yuan [6] Chiew Yee-Meng (2008), Scour

and Scour Countermeasures at Bridge Sites, Tianjin Univericity and Springer verlag,vol.14,pg.289-295.
[7] TDoyle J. Webb*, Neil L. Anderson*, Tim Newton+ and Steve Cardimona

BRIDGE SCOUR: Application of ground penetrating RadariFederal Highway Administration and Missouri Department of Transportation special publication, 2000.a [FDOTScourManual_March20108 [8]FDOTScourManual_March2010. [9] Bhalerao A. R.t, F.ISH and Garde R. J.1, F.ISH(2010), ISH JOURNAL OF HYDRAULIC ENGlNEERING; VOL. 16, 20 to, NO.1,pg79-91
[10]en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridge_scournjin

[11] River Morphology(2006),New age International(P)Ltd.,pg.287-296.

{[[University and 2008

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