The Impact of Ice Cover and Sediment Nonuniformity on Erosion Around Hydraulic Structures

Abstract

Based on two case studies, the impact of ice cover on local scour around bridge piers is presented in this chapter. Bed material with different grain sizes is used and ice covers with different roughness is used to study the scour characteristics. The impact of nonuniformity of sediment is also investigated. Results show that with the increase in densimetric Froude number, there is a corresponding increase in the dimensionless scour depth. For nonuniform sediment, due to the formation of an armor layer, less maximum scour depth was noted around bridge foundation structures compared to uniformly distributed sediment. The increase in ice cover roughness results in a larger scour depth and geometry. The results indicate that it is imperative to pay attention to the impact of ice cover on the scour around hydraulic structures.