Investigation of scour around the dual bridge piers under unsteady flow conditions using experimental model

Abstract

The local scour around the bridge piers is the main cause of their destruction. Based on this, extensive studies have been done to understand this phenomenon. Most of these studies have been done under steady flow conditions. This is while the flow in the river is unsteady. Therefore, the experiments of this research were carried out under unsteady flow conditions. The purpose of this research is to investigate the scour around the dual bridge piers at different distances of the piers from each other in a uniform flow as well as unsteady flow using symmetric hydrographs. The hydrographs used in the experiments are stepped hydrographs in 5 steps. The experiments were conducted under clear water conditions and U/UC=0.95. In all experiments, the diameter of the bridge pier (D) was constant and equal to 2.5 cm. The center-to-center distance between the dual bridge piers (S) was selected as 2D, 3D, 4D and 5D. In the unsteady flow, with increasing relative distance between the dual bridge piers, the maximum dimensionless scour depth of the first and second piers was increased and its maximum was measured at a relative distance of S/D=5 (in the range of relative distances studied in the research). But in the uniform flow, the maximum dimensionless scour depth of the first and second pier was observed at S/D=3 and S/D=4, respectively. Also, at a constant distance between the piers, increasing the peak and base flow of the hydrographs step-by-step, increased the maximum dimensionless scour depth of the first pier of dual bridge piers with an increasing rate. However, increasing the peak and base flow of the hydrographs step-by-step, increased the maximum dimensionless scour depth of the second pier with a decreasing and increasing rate, respectively.