Scouring of Bridge Foundations
With climate change leading to extreme weather patterns, record-breaking flooding is becoming the new normal. Recent such extreme events have led to the collapse of several bridges due to foundation scouring (e.g., Kalampaka, 2016). We have developed a 2-step experimental methodology to study the hydraulic and the mechanical part of the problem. In the first step, the hydraulic problem of local scour around a bridge pier is experimentally modelled in 1 g, using the recently developed MTG (J98).
The experimentally generated scour hole is then 3D-scanned to produce a 3D-printed mould. The latter is used in the second step to reproduce the scour hole in an N g model, subsequently tested in our drum centrifuge to study the mechanical part of the problem under proper stress scaling. Employing this hybrid technique, we have investigated foundation performance prior and after local scour through vertical, lateral monotonic, and slow-cyclic pushover tests. Our work has quantified the effect of local scour on vertical and lateral bearing capacity, questioning the common simplification of ignoring the geometry of the scour hole, making no distinction between local and general scour.
Selected recent publications
Jones L., Anastasopoulos I. (2020). “Miniaturised tsunami generator to model interaction of tsunami with coastal infrastructure”, International Journal of Physical Modelling in Geotechnics, 0 0:0, 1-15 (Ahead of Print) (external page J98)