Experimental observations and evaluations of formulae for local scour at pile groups in steady currents

Bridge scour is recognized as one of the key factors that causes structure failures, which in turn leads to economic and life loss. In this study, flume tests of four typical arrangements of pier groups embedded in sand under steady clear water conditions were carried out to observe the process and maximum depth around piles of scour. The investigation included single pile, tandem piles, side-by-side piles, and 3 × 3 pile groups. Different conditions including different pile spacing, flow velocity, and water depth are considered. Moreover, the evaluation of design methods from the United States, New Zealand, and China was analyzed and compared through experimental and mathematical methods. The experimental results show that shielding and jetting effects are obvious in pile groups, which become less obvious with the increase of pile spacing. The dynamic process of scour around single pile and pile groups are quite different. Meanwhile, most of the predicted scour depths by these equations tend to be much larger than those from field data, which may lead to overdesign and consequently high construction cost. In addition, data from this study and some laboratory experiment data from previous work were used to derive the correction factors of a new scour prediction equation, which can be used to estimate the scour in a sand bed and agree well with the observations.