Experimental Investigation of Local Scour Protection Using Cuboid Pore Structures

Local scour at bridge piers, referring to a process that the geotechnical materials around the bridge supports are undermined by flowing water, is one of the main threats responsible for bridge damage. Based on the tetrahedral penetrating frame that considers the water permeability and water resistance, the cuboid pore structure is proposed by adding more rigid connections among rods and changing pore morphology to resist local scour around bridge piers. To consider pores in cuboid pore structure, three parameters of two attack angles, three porosities, and two different pore layers are presented, and 13 experiments were conducted in the flume to investigate the scour protection of different cuboid pore structures. Through the analysis of the experiment results, it can be concluded that the scour depth of pier with different cuboid pore structures varies significantly due to different pores, which are determined by various parameters of attack angle, porosity, and pore layer in the structures; although the mean scouring depth and maximum scouring depth around the pier with cuboid pore structure increase in some cases, they decrease significantly by 50-80% with pore layer increasing from 3 to 4 when cuboid pore structure has an attack angle of 0 degrees and porosity of 82.03%; sensitivity analysis shows that the attack angle has the most remarkable impact on the scouring protection; the scour depth around the pier with cuboid pore structure shows more significant in homogeneity, but it is insignificant when cuboid pore structure has an attack angle of 0 degrees and porosity of 82.03%.

Automated summary

The study proposes a cuboid pore structure to resist local scour around bridge piers, with experiments showing that different parameters (attack angle, porosity, and pore layer) affect the scour depth around the piers.