86 / 2025-04-24 12:55:52

Performance of Scour Mitigation Strategy in the Presence of Debris Accumulation: Insights from Single and Tandem Pier Configurations

Accumulation of floating debris around bridge piers is considered to be a key factor that intensifies the process of local scour and contributes to the structural damages and defects, and, in the worst-case scenario, collapses. Despite the fact that numerous scour countermeasures have been developed and implemented, their effectiveness in presence of debris accumulations is still understudied particularly for tandem piers. The proposed study is planned to explore how debris accumulation influences the efficiency of different scour countermeasures. To achieve the research objective, both single and tandem piers were tested as a characteristic feature that has not been studied before in the context of debris accumulation. Respective influences of the debris shape, size, and level of submersion to the protective qualities of the selected countermeasures around cylindrical piers were evaluated. Initial results showed that while collars can decrease scour depth by up to 39% in no-debris conditions and their efficiency drops by up to 30% in the presence of this material. These findings will address a critical research gap and contribute to the development of more effective, debris-specific protection strategies for bridge structures.