Temporal evaluation of scour around different bridge abutment shapes

ABSTRACT

Scouring around a bridge abutment could potentially result in the failure of the bridge structure, leading to property damage and casualties. Therefore, it is crucial to control and reduce the depth of local scour around the abutment for the safe design of bridge abutments and foundations. Four different shapes of abutments were employed during the experimentation, namely vertical wall, 45° wing wall, oblong, and vertical wall with semi-circular nose shaped abutment. Temporal evaluation predicts the efficacies of these abutment shapes on local scour by varying the discharge (Q), which ranged from 0.023 m³/sec to 0.042 m³/sec with increments of 0.005 m³/sec. Vertical wall and 45° wing wall abutments, which have sharp edges and corners, create eddies and vortices that intensify the more scouring action. On the other hand, abutments with rounded noses and wings tend to generate less turbulence in the water flow, thereby reducing the erosive forces that cause scouring. During the experimentation, it was observed that vertical wall with semi-circular nose shaped bridge abutment reduces scour depth by approximately 27.74% in comparison to vertical wall abutment.

KEYWORDS:

• Vertical wall
• 45° wing wall
• oblong
• vertical wall with semi-circular nose
• scour depth

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).