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