Experimental Investigation of the Effect of the Pier Group Skew Angle on Local Scour Around the Piers under Steady Flow

Abstract

Local scour around bridge piers is one of the most significant factors for the bridges’ destruction. Therefore, it is necessary to investigate the scour depth around the bridge piers. The effect of the skew angle of the single-column pier group related to the flow direction in two different arrangements including 1×2 and 1×3 piers on the maximum scour depth around the pile group was investigated in this study. The experiments were carried out under steady flow conditions. The pier group was placed in the 1×2 arrangement at the skew angles of 0 to 90 degrees and in the 1×3 arrangement at the skew angles of 0 to 45 degrees. The results showed that increasing the skew angle of the pier group is almost ineffective on the maximum scour depth around the first pier. However, it has a great effect on the maximum scour depth, its temporal development, and the expansion of the scour hole around the second and third piers in different arrangements of the pier groups. The maximum scour depth of the pier group in both different arrangements occurred at a skew angle of 30 degrees, in the arrangement of 1×2 around the second pier and by 13.33% more than the first pier and in the arrangement of 1×3 around the third pier and by 21.57% more than the first pier.

Keywords

• local scour
• pier group
• skew angle
• steady flow