Influence of Wood Debris Accumulation on Bridge Pier Scour

Abstract

This note deals with the influence of debris accumulation on scour around bridge piers. Clear-water experiments in different hydraulic conditions have been carried out with three wood debris shapes: rectangular, triangular, and cylindrical. A wide range of debris thickness and width were studied in order to determine their influence on the maximum scour hole depth temporal evolution. The ratio of the pier diameter to the channel width was varied between 0.05 and 0.12 with total bridge contractions up to 20%. A proposed relation presents a simple design procedure to predict the increase in scour depth, which mainly depends on the flow contraction due to the debris accumulation.