Title: Simulation of clear water local scour around a group of bridge piers using an Eulerian 3D, two-phase model

Authors: S.F. Saghravani; A. Azhari

Addresses: Department of Civil Engineering, Shahrood University of Technology, Shahrood 3619995161, Iran ' Department of Civil Engineering, Islamic Azad University of Safadasht, Safadasht 2111222122, Iran

Abstract: Local scouring is one of the major causes of bridge failures. In the present study, scouring around a group of 3-round bridge piers in uniform sand with clear water was investigated through 3D numerical modelling. The flow of water and sand was modelled as a two-phase flow (water and sand) while a standard modified k-ε model was employed for the estimation of turbulence parameters. The numerical results were compared with data gathered from a physical model of the same structure. The agreement between the results from the numerical model and the experiments was satisfactory and thus, the method is promising for future research and practical use in estimating the size of a scour hole around a group of bridge piers.

Keywords: local scouring; pier groups; two-phase flow; simulation; clear water; bridge piers; bridge failure; numerical modelling; turbulence; uniform sand; scour holes; hole size estimation.

DOI: 10.1504/PCFD.2012.049097

Progress in Computational Fluid Dynamics, An International Journal, 2012 Vol.12 No.5, pp.333 - 341

Published online: 25 Nov 2014 *

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