Modeling scouring around bridge piers with different geometries

Scouring around bridge pier considered as one of the main reasons of bridge failure. Failure of the bridge structure is a catastrophic phenomenon. Studying the causes of scouring will give an idea about the solution probabilities, the shape and geometry of bridge piers has a great influence on the local scour. A literature review showed that there is still a lack of experimental and numerical investigation on the influence of the non-uniform pier geometry. Flow-3D was used for simulating of three-dimensional model to study local scouring around three different models of bridge piers based on an experimental study from literature which is performed to study the probability of reducing local scouring around a three different bridge pier models, one circular model and two non-uniform pier shapes with different orientations of bridge piers named as "upstream-facing round nosed pier (US-FRNP) (10-4)cm" and "downstream-facing round nosed pier (DS-FRNP) (4-10)cm" according to flow direction in a fixed flatbed and scoured bed condition. The results showed a good agreement between the experimental and numerical models and result from comparisons from both studies reveal that "downstream facing round-nosed bridge pier (DS-FRNP)" is an efficient countermeasure to lessen both scour depth and volume.