Surface Characteristics of Scouring at Bridge Elements

Infrastructural elements of bridges mounted in alluvial stream beds are susceptible to scouring. Decision-making for the type and placement practice of relevant countermeasures to be implemented against scouringaction is based on investigation of the characteristics of scour holes formed around piers and abutments. Thiswould also lead to the estimation of the safe depth of burial of footings of bridge infrastructural elements.Sets of experiments have been performed to investigate time-dependent characteristics of scour holes aroundcylindrical and square piers and vertical-wall abutments under clear water conditions with uniform bedmaterials. In the course of the experiments, temporal variations in scour depth and scour contours weremeasured. Using this information, a number of empirical relations were developed for temporal variationin dimensionless scour surface area and scour hole volume. The findings of this study may provide usefulinformation for the preliminary design of armoring countermeasures around such infrastructural elements