Submerged vane-attached to the abutment as scour countermeasure

Abstract

Over the past few decades, the cause of many bridge failures has been reported to be abutment scour. A large number of studies have been conducted to develop countermeasures to ensure the safety of existing bridges. A submerged vane is a measure that has recently been studied and found to be a promising scour mitigation technique for river bank erosion. Therefore, the main purpose of this study was to evaluate the performance of a submerged vane in the case of abutments. Several tests were conducted with and without vanes. Different vane positions and angles were examined. A single vane attached to the upstream nose of an abutment was found to be the most effective at decreasing, shifting, and warding off a scour hole. The results showed that the most appropriate vane angle was 40°. The efficiency of the new measure could reach 95% under some flow conditions.