Experimental assessment and prediction of temporal scour depth around a spur dike

Abstract

Spur dikes are river training structures that have been extensively used worldwide for towards enhancing flood control and the stability of embankments and riverbanks. However, scour around spur dikes can be a major problem affecting their stability and hydraulic performance. The precise computation of temporal scour depth at spur dikes is very important for the design of economical and safe spur dikes. This study focuses on experimentally assessing the temporal variation of scour depth around a vertical wall spur dike and identifying the parameters, which mostly influence spur dike performance for a channel bed surface comprised of sand-gravel mixtures. In the current study, the authors did physical experiments in a flume based study to obtain new data, aimed at deriving a new predictive model for spur dike scour and comparing its performance to others found in the literature. It was found that the dimensionless temporal scour depth variation increases with an increase in (i) the threshold velocity ratio, (ii) the densimetric Froude number of the bed surface sediment mixture, (iii) the flow shallowness (defined as the ratio of the approach flow depth, y, to the spur dike’s transverse length, l), and (iv) the flow depth-particle size ratio. It is also concluded that the temporal scour depth variation in the sediment mixture is influenced by the non-uniformity of sediment and decreases with an increase in the non-uniformity of the sediment mixture. A new mathematical model is derived for the estimation of temporal scour depths in sand-gravel sediment mixtures. The proposed equation has been calibrated and validated with the experimental data, demonstrating a good predictive capacity for the estimation of temporal scour depth evolution.