The outcome of an experimental study on the turbulent horseshoe vortex flow within the developing (intermediate stages and equilibrium) scour holes at cylindrical piers measured by an acoustic Doppler velocimeter (ADV) are presented. Since the primary objective was to analyze the evolution of the turbulent flow characteristics of a horseshoe vortex within a developing scour hole, the flow zone downstream of the pier was beyond the scope of the investigation. Experiments were conducted for the approaching flow having undisturbed flow depth (=0.25 m) greater than twice the pier diameter and the depth-averaged approaching flow velocity (=0.357 m∕s) about 95% of the critical velocity of the uniform bed sand that had a median diameter of 0.81 mm . The flow measurements by the ADV were taken within the intermediate (having depths of 0.25, 0.5, and 0.75 times the equilibrium scour depth) and equilibrium scour holes (frozen by spraying glue) at a circular pier of diameter 0.12 m . In order to have a comparative s...

Laboratory experimental results on the turbulent flow characteristics, measured by an acoustic Doppler velocimeter, over loose rough boundaries at the near-threshold of motion are reported. The primary endeavor was to investigate the response of the turbulent flow field, having zero-pressure gradient, to the uniform gravel beds at the near-threshold of motion with reasonably wide range of relative roughness ε∕h ( 0.02<ε∕h<0.15 ; where ε=Nikuradse ’s equivalent roughness and h=flow depth). Five uniform gravel sizes, ranging from 4.1 to 14.25 mm , were used in the experiments. The vertical distributions of time-averaged velocity, turbulence intensities and the Reynolds stress were measured and analyzed. The variation of the mixing-length is considerably linear with the depth within the inner layer, whose thickness is 0.23 times the boundary layer thickness δ , and the von Kármán constant is obtained as 0.35. The boundary shear stresses were determined by three independent methods, such as using the logarith...

Experimental results on local scour in long contractions for uniform and nonuniform sediments (gravels and sands) under clear-water scour are presented. An emphasis was given to conduct the experiments on scour in long contractions for gravels. The findings of the experiments are used to describe the effects of various parameters (obtained from dimensional analysis) on equilibrium scour depth under clear-water scour. The equilibrium scour depth increases with decrease in opening ratio and with increase in sediment size for gravels. But the curves of scour depth versus sediment size have considerable sag at the transition of sand and gravel. The scour depth decreases with increase in densimetric Froude number, for larger opening ratios, and increases with increase in approaching flow depth at lower depths. However, it becomes independent of approaching flow depth at higher flow depths. The effect of sediment gradation on scour depth is pronounced for nonuniform sediments, which reduce scour depth significa...

Results of an experimental study on clear-water scour at submerged cylindrical obstacles (circular cylinders) in uniform bed sediments under steady flow are presented. The scour depths at submerged circular cylinders are compared with the scour depths at corresponding unsubmerged cylinders (extended above the free surface of flow) of the same diameters under similar flow and bed sediment conditions. The scour depth decreases with an increase in submergence ratio. A submergence factor is introduced to determine the scour depth at a submerged cylinder from the information of the scour depth at an unsubmerged cylinder of the same diameter. In addition, the flow fields along the upstream vertical plane of symmetry of unsubmerged and submerged cylinders are presented through vector plots, which reveal that the dimension and strength of the horseshoe vortex decreases with an increase in submergence ratio. The horseshoe vortex circulations, which decrease with an increase in submergence ratio, are computed from ...

The paper proposes a semiempirical model to estimate the temporal development of scour depth at cylindrical piers with unexposed foundations. A cylindrical pier with a foundation is considered as nonuniform pier. The concept of primary vortex and the principle of volumetric rate of sediment transport are used to develop a methodology to characterize the rate of evolution of the scour hole at nonuniform cylindrical piers. The model also simulates the entire scouring process at nonuniform cylindrical piers having the discontinuous surface located below the initial bed level. The scouring process includes three zones; viz Zone 1 having the scouring phenomenon similar to that of a uniform pier, Zone 2 in which the scour depth remains unchanged with its value equal to the depth of the top level of foundation below the initial bed level while the dimensions of the scour hole increase, and in Zone 3 the geometry pier foundation influences the scouring process. A concept of superposition using an effective pier d...