Effect of soil non-uniformity on scour for circular compound bridge piers

Abstract

Bridge piers having a varying foundation diameter are known as compound bridge piers. In India for the construction of road and railway bridges circular compound bridge piers are mostly adopted. In past studies it has been concluded that 60-70% of bridge failure occurs because of scour around bridge pier across a river due to flowing water. Most of the past studies were done on the uniform bridge pier and a very few studies has been carried out so far on scour around compound bridge piers. For economical design of bridge pier foundation there is a need to determine the scour depth. In the present study, an experimental investigation has been carried out for computation of time variant change of scour depth for two different models of circular compound bridge piers over non-uniform soil for all possible cases of position of footing with respect to level of the bed, i.e., I. Footing at the level of bed, and II. Footing below the level of bed (1cm, 2cm, 3cm and 4cm) for non-uniform sediments.