Local Scour and Sediment Deposition at Bridge Piers during Floods
Publication: Journal of Hydraulic Engineering
Volume 146, Issue 3
Abstract
The local scour and sediment deposition at a bridge pier during flood waves is analyzed to investigate the effects of different flow and sediment regimes (regulated and unregulated discharges with or without excess sediment supply). Concurrent field measurements of scour and streamflow were performed during 6 days at the Rapel Bridge, over the Rapel River (mean annual discharge, ), located in Central Chile (71°44’9” W, 33°56’22” S). During the measurements, river discharge was regulated by the operation of a hydropower plant, located 24 km upstream of the bridge, which follows a daily hydropeaking scheme. A simple mathematical model of scour and deposition is proposed, and field measurements are used to estimate optimal model parameters and to evaluate model performance. The model was applied to pre- and postdam scenarios to compare expected scour caused by a natural flow regime and by hydropeaking considering different excess sediment supply. Results show that the ultrasonic scour sensor is reliable for real scour monitoring under the presented field conditions. A single and easy-to-perform measurement of scour evolution during one flood was enough for estimation of optimal model parameters. The calibrated model reproduced measured scour and deposition in a verification case with high precision, i.e., root mean square error, and Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency, . The model application showed that scour and deposition are very sensitive to the excess sediment supply. After two years, scour in the predam scenario resulted higher than in the postdam scenario when equilibrium conditions or no sediment deposition occurred. In case of equilibrium conditions and excess sediment supply deposition occurred during the falling limb of floods producing important refilling of the scour hole. However, floods’ high peak-discharges and excess sediment supply produced high scour depths of comparable magnitude as those after the two years hydrograph, which occurred only briefly around the peak discharges before sediment deposition, illustrating the complex interactions between flow and sediment in time, with important consequences for monitoring of bridge pier scour in the field and for forensic analyses.
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Data Availability Statement
All data generated and used during the study appear in the published article. The code for the computation of scour and sediment deposition at bridge piers during floods using the proposed mathematical formulation is available from the corresponding author by request.
Acknowledgments
Presented results are part of the research projects Fondecyt 1150997 and Fondecyt 11140764. The valuable support and help of our technician René Iribarren during the field campaigns is especially acknowledged. Alonso Pizarro thanks the support of the European Commission under the ELARCH program (Project Reference No. 552129-EM-1-2014-1-IT-ERA MUNDUS-EMA21). This publication reflects only the authors’ view and the Commission is not liable for any use that may be made of the information contained herein.
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Journal of Hydraulic Engineering
Volume 146 • Issue 3 • March 2020
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©2020 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Sep 20, 2018
Accepted: Jul 30, 2019
Published online: Jan 9, 2020
Published in print: Mar 1, 2020
Discussion open until: Jun 9, 2020
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