Effect of trapezoidal collars as a scour countermeasure around wing-wall abutments

Abstract

Local scour around bridge abutments is a widespread problem that can result in structural failure. Collars can be used as a countermeasure to reduce the scour depth. In this study, the temporal scour development around a wing-wall abutment was investigated with and without collars. The tests were carried out under clear-water conditions for different abutment lengths, with collars of different sizes placed at the bed level. When no collar was used in the experiments, 70% of the maximum scour depth occurred in less than 2 h. However, when a collar with a width greater than the length of the abutment was used, no scour was observed for up to 200 min from the beginning of the experiments. The results show that an increase in the collar width not only led to a lag time for the onset of scouring but also reduced the maximum scour depth. Moreover, an increased collar width led to a better performance in mitigating scouring around smaller abutments. Generally, the scour depth decreased by 9%–37% with different collar widths.