Constriction Effects in Clear-Water Scour at Abutments
Publication: Journal of Hydraulic Engineering
Volume 135, Issue 2
Abstract
The erosion process at a bridge abutment may be affected by the flow constriction when the abutment occupies a significant part of the flume width. We devised a specific experimental campaign to investigate the effect of the obstruction ratio (i.e., the ratio between the abutment length and the channel width) on the erosion depth: we performed homogeneous series of clear-water scour experiments in each of which the obstruction ratio was the only parameter that varied. The experimental results are presented in light of a dimensionless framework. It was found that the effect of the obstruction ratio on the time development of local scour depth may not be large; nevertheless, significant effect can be observed, even for relatively small values of the parameter during the earliest phases. The latter are important, for example, for the step-by-step modeling of the erosion development under unsteady flow conditions. We propose a simple equation to quantify the scour enhancement due to the flow constriction in clear-water abutment scour.
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Acknowledgments
This work was financially supported by the Italian Ministry of University and Research, under the PRIN research program. Comments and suggestions from three anonymous reviewers and the associate editor improved the original manuscript.
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Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Hydraulic Engineering
Volume 135 • Issue 2 • February 2009
Pages: 140 - 145
Copyright
© 2009 ASCE.
History
Received: Jul 16, 2007
Accepted: Jul 10, 2008
Published online: Feb 1, 2009
Published in print: Feb 2009
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