Bridge-pier scour is a significant problem for the safety of bridges. Extensive laboratory and field studies have been conducted examining the effect of relevant variables. This note presents an alternative to the conventional regression-based equations (HEC-18 and regression equation developed by the writers), in the form of artificial neural networks (ANNs) and genetic programming (GP). There had been 398 data sets of field measurements that were collected from published literature and were used to train the network or evolve the program. The developed network and evolved programs were validated by using the observations that were not involved in the training. The performance of GP was found more effective when compared to regression equations and ANNs in predicting the scour depth at bridge piers.

The necessity of sewers to carry sediment has been recognized for many years. Typically, old sewage systems were designated based on self-cleansing concept where there is no deposition in sewer. These codes were applicable to non-cohesive sediments (typically storm sewers). This study presents adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system (ANFIS), which is a combination of neural network and fuzzy logic, as an alternative approach to predict the functional relationships of sediment transport in sewer pipe systems. The proposed relationship can be applied to different boundaries with partially full flow. The present ANFIS approach gives satisfactory results (r2 = 0.98 and RMSE = 0.002431) compared to the existing predictor.