Assessing equilibrium clear water scour around single cylindrical piers

The objective of this research is to investigate the pertinence of existing approaches to assess the onset of the equilibrium phase of scour at single cylindrical piers in experimental studies. The results of five long-lasting experiments are reported. The discussion has profusely shown that common...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Lança, Rui (author)
Other Authors: Fael, Cristina (author), Cardoso, António (author)
Format: article
Language:eng
Published: 2014
Subjects:
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/10400.1/3436
Country:Portugal
Oai:oai:sapientia.ualg.pt:10400.1/3436
Description
Summary:The objective of this research is to investigate the pertinence of existing approaches to assess the onset of the equilibrium phase of scour at single cylindrical piers in experimental studies. The results of five long-lasting experiments are reported. The discussion has profusely shown that common methods used to decide on whether a given scour experiment has reached the equilibrium phase may be erroneous. It has also shown that known predictors of time to equilibrium may imply significantly wrong predictions of equilibrium depth. Finally, it seems that, typically, 7 days-long scour depth records adjusted though a 6-parameters polynomial function and extrapolated to infinite time render robust vales of the equilibrium scour depth at single cylindrical piers.