Study on scouring around bridge piers protected by collar using low density sediment

The efficiency of a collar in reducing the scour depth around circular and rectangular piers is studied at different flow intensities (ratio of upstream shear stress to sediment critical shear stress). Rectangular Piers aligned with the flow as well as skewed at 5º, 10º, 20º were examined. Previous studies had shown that with collar the equilibrium time of scouring increases considerably. To reduce the time of experiments low density sediment was used as the bed materials. Comparison between test results and available results with natural sediment showed that, though the relative equilibrium depths were approximately similar, the time to reach equilibrium condition diminished to less than 10 hours with low density sediment. Experimental results for circular and aligned rectangular pier showed that at u*/u*c=0.95 to 0.75 the collar could reduce the maximum scour hole from about 20% to 60% respectively. In rectangular pier, by increasing the skew angle and/or the flow intensity, the efficiency of collar decreased.