Influence of collars on reduction in scour depth at two piers in a tandem configuration

Bridge failure, due to local scour at bridge pier foundations, has become a critical issue in river and bridge engineering, which might lead to transportation disruption, loss of lives and economic problems. A practical solution to prevent bridge collapses is the implementation of scour mitigation methods around bridge foundations. Based on an experimental perspective, this study is focused on the influence of the size and position of circular collars from the sediment bed on scour depth at two tandem piers. To meet this end, long-lasting experiments are performed under clear-water conditions using uniform sand for bed materials. Compared to the adjacent position of the collar on the bed, placing the collars below the bed would increase the delay time of scour at the piers up to four times. However, regardless of the delay time, the observations indicate that locating the collars on the initial bed surface results in maximum reduction in scour depths around the piers. It was found that diminishing the flow intensity has a dramatic impact on the scour reduction at the piers, so that maximum reduction in scour depths at piers increased on average from 20 to 70% with the reduction in the flow intensity from 0.95 to 0.9.