Investigation of Various Techniques for Reducing Scour around Bridge Piers

Usually bridge piers collapse worldwide and the entire structure may be affected due to scouring process. Several methods used to examine and mitigate the scour phenomena to support the bridge designs. One of the best method to reduce scour around pier is modifications of piers. In the present study, the temporal development of scour depth around bridge piers and effectiveness of pier modifications were examined experimentally by providing cable, openings and a collar individually and in combination under same flow conditions. Individually, collar provision around the octagonal pier extenuate more scour depth as compared to two other provided modifications. However, the scouring around octagonal pier with openings was more than that with cable. The scour depth around octagonal pier was also tested for various combinations of above modifications. Providing openings, cable, and a collar on the octagonal pier together, noticed to be the most effective in extenuating scouring. It was found to be 42% less at the upstream than an octagonal pier without any modifications. It was also noticed that scour depth around plain octagonal pier was 9.4% less at the upstream than that of plain circular pier.