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Experimental investigation of local scouring around the bridge piers located at a 90° convergent river bend

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Abstract

Placing the bridge piers in the river with a convergent bend can make the flow and erosion pattern complicated around the bridge piers. In this research, the maximum depth and volume of scour hole around piers were investigated in convergent bends of a river. The experimental model with a 90° convergent bend was made with a central curvature radius of 170 cm. The piers with the cylindrical and cubic shapes with different dimensions were prepared and installed at different positions of 90° convergent bend to investigate the scouring condition under three flow discharges in Clear-water mode. On the other hand, natural sand with uniform grain size of d50 = 1 mm was used as the bed materials. The results revealed that depth and volume of the scour hole around piers increase with increasing angle, so that the maximum depth and volume of the scour hole occurred at the angle 75°. Furthermore, the depth and volume of the scour hole around cylindrical piers were lower than cubic piers in all cases. Also, the scour hole shape was asymmetric relative to central axis of the channel and was mainly the extension of the hole towards the inner bend.

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Abbreviations

d s :

Maximum scour depth

L :

Length of pier

b :

width or diameter of pier

B :

Width of channel

V :

Velocity of flow

\( \upsilon \) :

Dynamic viscosity

\( \partial \) :

Temperature of flow

\( \theta \) :

Location of pier in bend

\( {\text{g}} \) :

Gravitational acceleration

\( {\text{d}}_{ 5 0} \) :

Median grain size

\( {\text{d}}_{ 1 0} \) :

Sediment diameters which are finer than 10 percentage of bed materials

\( {\text{d}}_{ 1 6} \) :

Sediment diameters which are finer than 16 percentage of bed materials

\( {\text{d}}_{ 3 0} \) :

Sediment diameters which are finer than 30 percentage of bed materials

\( {\text{d}}_{ 6 0} \) :

Sediment diameters which are finer than 60 percentage of bed materials

\( {\text{d}}_{ 8 4} \) :

Sediment diameters which are finer than 84 percentage of bed materials

y :

Flow depth

t :

Time at maximum scouring

φ :

Friction angle of sediment

\( \rho \) :

Density of water

\( \uprho_{s} \) :

Density of sediment

Rc :

Central radius of bend

S 0 :

Channel slope

\( \frac{\vartheta }{\text{vy}} \) :

Effect of the viscous force (Reverse Reynolds number)

\( \frac{\text{gy}}{{{\text{V}}^{ 2} }} \) :

Reverse Froude number

Fr :

Froude number

\( \upsigma_{{\rm g}} \) :

Geometric standard deviation

\( {\text{CU}} \) :

Uniformity coefficients

\( {\text{CC}} \) :

curvature coefficients

Q :

Flow discharge rate

X,Y,Z :

Cartesian coordinates

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful to the Islamic Azad University of Eghlid for providing the Hydraulic Lab.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Civil Engineering, Najafabad Branch, Islamic Azad University, Najafabad, Iran

    Mousa Rasaei, Sohrab Nazari & Saeid Eslamian

  2. Department of Civil Engineering, Eqhlid Branch, Islamic Azad University, Eqhlid, Iran

    Sohrab Nazari

  3. Department of Water Engineering, Isfahan University of Technology, Isfahan, Iran

    Saeid Eslamian

Authors
  1. Mousa Rasaei
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  2. Sohrab Nazari
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  3. Saeid Eslamian
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Correspondence to Sohrab Nazari.

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Rasaei, M., Nazari, S. & Eslamian, S. Experimental investigation of local scouring around the bridge piers located at a 90° convergent river bend. Sādhanā 45, 87 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12046-020-1314-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12046-020-1314-7

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