International Journal of Civil & Environmental Engineering IJCEE-IJENS Vol:13 No:01

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An Experimental Study of Local Scour Around

Circular Bridge Pier in Sand Soil
Ibrahim H. Elsebaie 1

Abstract S tudy of sour bridge piers is extremely important

for the safe design of the piers and other hydraulic structures.
An experimental investigation of local scour around circular
bridge piers in sand is presented. The principal objective of this
study is to carry out a much longer duration Tests to evaluate
the time development of the local scour at cylindrical pier in
addition to the evaluation of the effectiveness of a pier shape
and different flow rates on the depth of local scour.
This study describes the variation of scour depths that may
occur at bridge piers. There has been a difficulty in estimation
of accurate scour depth, which includes simi litude aspects of
laboratory experiments on scour at bridge piers, complicate the
development of reliable scour-estimation relationships. In a
practical sense, the difficulties imply that estimation
relationship can only be of approximate accuracy. Experimental
investigations have been studied to examine the maximum
depth of scour and its pattern along longitudinal as well as in
transverse directions.
It was found that the scour depth increases with time. In
addition, the maximum depth of scour is dependent on both time
as well as flow rate, it was noticed that maximum depth of scour
was increasing with increase of flow and time as well. However
results presented here are encouraging and are very much in
the agreement with the previous studies related to scour at
bridge piers.

Index Term--

Bridge pier, S cour, Time dependence,

Equilibrium scour depth, S ediment transport.

1.
INT RODUCT ION
Scouring may be defined as the removal of material around
piers, abutments, spur dikes, and embankments caused by flow
acceleration and turbulence near bridge sub-structural
elements and embankments.
Scour is the removal of sediment around or near structures
located in flowing water. It means the lowering of the riverbed
level by water erosions such that there is a tendency to expose
the foundations of a bridge. It is the result of the erosive action
of flowing water, excavating and carrying away material from

Assistant Professor, Civil Engineering Department, King Saud

University, Riyadh, KSA; phone: 0049501214635; fax: +49014677008;
e-mail: elsebaie@ksu.edu.sa

the bed and banks of streams and from around the piers and
abutments of bridges. Such scour around pier and pile
supported structures and abutments can result in structural
collapse and loss of life and property. The amount of this
reduction below an assumed natured level is termed scour
depth.
Pier scour is the greatest single cause of bridge failures.
With the prospect of more severe and more frequent floods
due to climate change, reducing the risk of bridge failure is
becoming increasingly important. Scour is a worldwide
phenomenon and of great concern especially to civil engineers.
Any structure placed in a river, whether of natural or human
origin, will tend to promote scour and deposition due to a
sudden change in the flow direction or high velocity flow.
Scouring has long been acknowledged as a severe hazard to
the performance of bridge piers.
The type of local scour is classified according to the mode
of sediment transport in the approaching flow. They are clear
water scour and live bed scour. Clear water scour occurs when
sediment is removed from the scour hole but not supplied by
the approaching flow; while live bed scour occurs when there
is a general sediment transport by the approaching flow [1].
A large amount of literature has been published on the local
scour at and around a bridge pier. The total scour at a river
crossing consists of three components that, in general, can be
added together [2]. They include general scour, contraction
scour, and local scour. Cheremisinoff et al. [3] on the other
hand divided scour into two major types, namely general scour
and localized scour.
Local scour at pier site has been subjected to many
investigations throughout the world and only very limited
success has been achieved by the attempts to model scour
computationally, and physical model remains the principal tool
employed for studying the scour at the bridges and the site of
other hydraulic structures [4].
Tamer et al. [4] presented in his research that the flow depth
and velocity have an appreciable effect on the local scour and
the data from the physical model showed that doubling the
flow depth will result in more than 200% increase in the scour
depth. It is necessary to involve the hydraulic engineers in the
design stage for bridges to take care of hydraulic effects of the
flow on these bridges. Many methods were proposed for
estimating the local scour around piers at the bridge site, but
these methods were based mainly on the data collected from

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physical models and field data need to be collected to verify
these methods [4].
Richardson [5] indicated in his study that bridge
foundations should be designed to withstand the effects of
scour without failing for the worst conditions resulting from
floods equal to the 100-year flood, or a smaller flood if it will
cause scour depths deeper than the 100-year flood. Bridge
foundations should be checked to ensure that they would not
fail due to scour resulting from the occurrence of a super flood
in order of magnitude of a 500-year flood [5].
Oscar [6] presented an experimental investigation on time
variation of three-dimensional scour-hole geometry at a circular
pier in sand. Time-dependent scour-hole geometry has been
measured by a new high-resolution non-intrusive method.
Experimental results provide information for a quantitative
definition of the different scour phases, namely initial,
development, stabilisation and equilibrium phase. The
obtained data from the study can be used in improving bridge
scour monitoring and testing results of numerical simulations
[6].
Jau-Yau Lu et al. [7] conducted a research for proposing a
semiempirical model to estimate the temporal development of
scour depth at cylindrical piers with unexposed foundations.
Acylindrical pier with a foundation is considered as
nonuniform pier. The simulated results obtained from the
proposed model are in good agreement with the present
experiment results with the experimental data. He concluded in
his study that model agrees satisfactory with experimental
data.
Qiping [8] indicated in his recent study that scour prediction
methods developed in the laboratories and the scour equations
based on laboratory data did not always produce reasonable
results for field conditions. Recent research indicates that
laboratory investigations often oversimplify or ignore many of
the complexities of the flow fields around the bridge piers.
Patrick D. A. [9] conducted a research; the use of collars for
reducing the effects of local scour at a bridge pier is presented
together with the time aspect of the scour development. The
adoption of a collar is based on the concept that its existence
will sufficiently inhibit and/or deflect the local scour
mechanisms so as to reduce the local scour immediately
adjacent to the pier. The overall objective of the research is to
study the temporal development of the scour for a pier fitted
with a collar and a pier without a collar.
Many researchers have conducted various studies to
predict the maximum depth and diameter of scour hole. An
attempt has been made to review few previous studies related
to scour ( [10]. Scour has been the major concern for safety of
marine and hydraulic structures. A large number of hydraulic
structures failed as the local scour progresses which gradually
undermines the foundations. It is important to control the local
scour depth at downstream of hydraulic structures to ensure
safety of these structures [10].

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Recent study by Guney et al. [11] showed that the Local

scours around bridge piers influence their stabilities and play a
key role in bridge failures. In his study local scours around
bridge piers resulting from unsteady flow was measured. Sabita
and Maiti [12] performed study in the field of Local scour
around a cylindrical pier in a channel with an erodible bed or
natural bed . It was concluded that the highly unsteady
complex flow field around a circular pier produces scour hole
mainly for the presence of vortices. The main mechanism that
drives the formation and evolution of the scour hole around
bridge pier is horse shoe vortex motion.
Failure of bridges due to local scour has motivated many
investigators to explore the causes of scouring and to predict
maximum scour depth at bridge piers [13 &14].
In this work, an experimental study was conducted to
investigate the effect of the pier shape, discharge and time on
the main scour hole dimensions. Also, the maximum depth of
scour and its pattern along the longitudinal as well as in
transverse directions were investigated.
2.

EXPRIM ENTAL SETUP

2.1 Experiment Apparatus

Experiments were conducted in a rectangular transparent
glass flume in the hydraulics laboratory, College of
Engineering, King Saud University. The overall length of flume
was measured to be 9.45 m. This length includes inlet, outlet
and the working section. The length of flume was found to be
sufficient to provide stable flow conditions in the flume. The
flume was 45 cm deep with a bed width of approximately 30 cm.
The flume was constructed on an adjustable steel frame, 1.3 m
above the laboratory floor. The flume is provided with two
controlling gates, one vertical gate upstream of the working
section and a tailgate downstream of the flume. Water into the
channel was supplied from a sump tank constructed below the
floor level of the laboratory. Centrifugal pump, having a
maximum capacity of 27 l/s, serve the purpose of lifting water
and supplying it to the channel. Discharge was measured b y a
V- notch fitted at the end of the flume. Two point-gauge
mounted on a sliding aluminum frame was utilized to measure
surface elevations at upstream and downstream of the pier.
2.2 Experimental Procedure
A cylindrical pier is placed at the middle of the channel
section of the flume. The cylindrical shape of the pier is similar
to the circular bridge pier. The wooden circular pier of 5 cm
diameter was fixed on the flume bed at 2.5 m from the upstream.
The bed was leveled thoroughly with the sand and in itial level
(elevation) of sand bed was taken with the sliding point gauge
prior to the start of flow in the channel. All the levels of bed
with different time intervals were taken with the same moving
gauge installed at upstream as well as down stream separately.
Every time runs were started by allowing the water to flow over
horizontal bed with a defined flow rate.

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For every run a different discharge was maintained and
the water was allowed to flow for successive time periods of 5,
10, 15, 30, 60 and 120 minutes. After each and every defined
time interval the elevation of the sand bed was gauged with the
same moving gauge. Scour depth measurements were taken
along three directions namely X1 (in the center line of
pier/longitudinal), X2 in the same longitudinal direction but
near to channel boundary and parallel to center line of pier,
variation of scour depth was also taken in transverse
direction(Y), as shown in Fig. 1. The arrangement of the pier in
the flume is shown in Fig. 2 (a and b).

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2.3 Sediment Material

The bed material was a mixture of sand with grain sizes ranging
between 0.075 and 2.00 mm. The sand was filled in the working
section of the channel up to a layer of approximately 11 cm in
thickness. The variation of size of bed material (sand) has been
presented in table I.
T ABLE I
SIEVE ANALYSIS

Sieve
No.
# 10
# 16
# 20
# 40
# 60
# 100
# 200

Dia (mm)
2
1.18
0.850
0.425
0.250
0.150
0.075

Weight
ret.
0
78.8
466.6
499
499.2
0
0

% Retained

% Passing

0
15.8
93.3
99.8
99.8
0
0

100
84.2
6.7
0.2
0.2
0
0

3.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS
The variation in the depth of scouring along the channel
and in the vicinity of the pier can be directly observed through
a scale attached at different sections on the Plexiglass each at
10 cm interval and at the pier face. The Scour pattern at bridge
pier and the Scour in the vicinity of pier are shown in Fig. (3
and 4).

Fig. 1. Circular bridge pier

(a)

(a)

(b)

(b)

Fig. 2. (a & b) Arrangement of the cylindrical pier in the flume

Fig. 3. (a & b): Scour pattern at bridge pier

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(a)
Fig. 5. Variation of scour depth with longitudinal direction (X 1 )

(b)
Fig. 4. (a& b): Scour in the vicinity of pier

The results obtained show the variation of scour depth with

distance X1, X2 in longitudinal direction and with y in
transverse direction respectively, as shown in Fig. (5-7) for one
of the flow rates used. In this set of run the flow rate was
maintained at flow rates range between 5.82 and 16.88
liter/second. The observations obtained from all runs with
different flow rates in the longitudinal directions X 1 & X2
showed that the depth of scour is comparatively higher in
upstream while it is less in down stream side of the pier. It was
found that the maximum depth of scour was attained
approximately after one hour of run and there was a very little
increase in scour depth in next one hour of run. Scour depth
variation in the longitudinal direction X1 was gauged in the
center line of pier while scour depth variations in the
longitudinal direction X2, for different time intervals (starting
from 5, 15, 30, 60 & up to 120 minutes), was gauged near to the
channel boundary. As evident from the graphs of X 1 series
that the level of the sand bed was bit higher than the initial
elevation of bed in the down stream of pier which was
subsequently reducing with the higher time interval, the reason
behind it is the deposition of eroded material from the vicinity
of upstream of the pier. The variation of scour depth with
distance Y in transverse direction was found to be almost same
towards both the sides of pier. Centre line of pier is located at
X1 = 32.5 cm. Series I data were recorded by putting switch
on and off for flow with every reading while series II data
were recorded in continuation of flow.

Fig. 6. Variation of scour depth with longitudinal direction (X 2 )

Fig. 7. Variation of scour depth with transverse direction (Y)

All the results depicted here show an increase in maximum

depth of scour with the increase of flow rate in longitudinal as
well as in transverse direction. The variation of scour depth
with distance Y in transverse direction was found to be almost
like same trend towards both side of the pier but maximum
depth of scour was noticed to be little more compared to
results presented with smaller discharge.
The maximum scour depth around the cylindrical pier is
measured for different flow rates and the experimental results
are presented in graphical form to predict the equilibrium scour
depth around the cylindrical pier. The variation of depth of
scour hole is presented in Fig. (8 and 9). It is observed that as
the depth of flow increases the scour hole depth increases but

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rate of increment is not linear. It is clear that the maximum
depth of scour is dependent on both time as well as flow rate.
Also, it was observed that as increasing the flow in the
channel initial depth of scour hole is increasing. As time
increases saturation comes and the equilibrium scour depth
reaches.

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stabilisation and equilibrium phase. Performing the sequence

of experiments and analyzing the results presented here in this
study for local scour at bridge piers, following conclusions can
be drawn:
The depth of scour increases with time, however it was
found that the rate of increase of scour depth was
decreasing for a longer time interval. Rate of flow does
affect the depth of scour; scour depth was more with
higher flow rate.
Maximum scour depth was observed to occur at the
upstream of the pier. The maximum depth of scour is
dependent on both time as well as flow rate, it was
noticed that maximum depth of scour was increasing
with increase of flow and time as well.

Fig. 8. Variation of maximum scour depth with time

It is observed that the coarse portion of the sediment is

deposited at downstream zone of the pier. However
scour hole dimensions in the transverse direction was
found to be almost same.
Result indicates that scour may take a relatively long time
to reach an asymptotic state.
The presented data can be used in improving bridge
scour monitoring and testing results of numerical
simulations. Thus, it is clear from the study that the scour
at bridge pier is very important for design of protection
works and hence sufficient provisions should be made
during designs against expected scour at bridge piers.

Fig. 9. Variation of maximum scour depth with time

The results obtained by this study confirm the results obtained

by [6, 7, 9, 13], where it was observed that the maximum depth
of scour is highly dependent on the experimental duration. The
depth of the scour hole increases as the duration of the
increased flow that initiates the scour increases. The extent of
scour observed at the pier also increases as the duration of the
tests increases. It was found by Patrick [9] that the temporal
development of the scour hole at the pier was dependent on
whether or not the pier was fitted with a collar placed at the
bed level.
4.
CONCLUSION
Local scour monitoring is very important to avoid major
damages that may occur. An experimental investigation on time
variation of three-dimensional scour-hole geometry at a circular
pier in sand has been presented. The experimental results
provided information for a quantitative definition of the
different scour phases, namely initial, development,

A CKNOWLEDGM ENT
The experiments for this study were carried out in the
Hydraulics Laboratory of the College of Engineering, King
Saud University, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The author is
grateful for the support provided by the Laboratory staff.
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