Impact force of a floating woody debris on a masonry arch bridge

This paper presents an experimental investigation of flood-induced hydrodynamic and floating woody debris impact on a scaled arch bridge based on a typical single-span masonry arch bridge geometry in the UK. A substantial proportion of masonry arch bridges spanning watercourses has been damaged or destroyed due to flood-induced loads in many parts of the world. Although the scour has been well understood, there are limited studies investigating the highly transient loads on the superstructures and associated responses due to a floating debris inside the flow. To represent a typical river flow situation, an experimental investigation used a 1:10 model in a flume such that the bridge abutments were fully submerged with the impact force from floating debris measured. Results indicate that the debris impact load exerted on the arch bridge was approximately 4.3 times higher than the hydrodynamic force with short impact duration, ~0.01s