A Numerical Comparison of Flow and Scour Around a Vertical Smooth and Dimpled Circular Cylinder

Flow and scour play an important role in the stability and foundations of bridge piers in rivers and coastal structures. Therefore, a series of simulations were carried out to investigate the flow and scour around a vertical smooth and a dimple circular cylinder. Hence, the Flow3D CFD model was implemented to simulate the flow and scour around and downstream due to the turbulent flow in the smooth and dimpled cylinders. The simulation results showed clearly the effect of the flow around the circular cylinder and the scour around and downstream the pile induced by the velocity pattern. The results were evaluated to establish if the dimpled pile suppress the effect of the large lee-wake vortices and the scour compared to a smooth pile. Finally, numerical simulations show a significant difference in the scour pattern so there is a possibility to extend the results to real cases to mitigate the scour in bridge piers and piles.