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Modeling Time-Dependent Variation of Local Scour At Dual Bridge Piers

Tarih: 

Konum:  A116

Meriç Selamoğlu

Abstract
In river bridges, one of the most common reasons for failure is the excessive local scour at bridge piers, which is basically the erosion of bed material around the piers due to the combined action of accelerated local flow field and vortex mechanism. In this seminar, the research study on modeling time-dependent variation of local scour at dual bridge piers will be presented. The study aims to develop a semi-empirical model to predict the evolution of maximum scour depth around dual piers located in line with the flow axis. For this purpose, series of laboratory experiments using different pier size, spacing between the piers, and flow intensity were conducted. Based on the experimental data, time-evolution of the volume of the scour hole around the dual piers was obtained and the sediment transport rate out of the scour hole was formulated. The findings were coupled in sediment continuity equation of the scour hole to obtain temporal variation of the maximum scour depth. Experimental results and the proposed model are in relatively good agreement. Therefore, the semi-empirical model provides a practical estimation of the maximum scour depth at dual bridge piers. As a continuation to this study, the experimental results will be used to validate and improve the performance of a Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD)-based scour prediction model that will be simulated later. Simulation of shear stresses inside the scour hole via this CFD model will be used to further improve the proposed semi-empirical model.

Biography
Meriç Selamoğlu is a PhD candidate and research/teaching assistant in the Civil Engineering Department at Middle East Technical University (METU). After graduating from TED Ankara College Foundation Private High School in 2003, she received her BS in 2007 and MSc in Water Resources Engineering division in 2010 from the same department at METU.