Investigating the effect of curved shape of bridge abutment provided with collar on local scour, experimentally and numerically

Scour around bridge supports such as abutments can result in structural collapse and loss of life and property, so there is a need to control and minimize the local scour depth. In this paper, numerical and experimental studies were carried out to investigate the effect of different relative radii of the bridge abutment provided with collar on local scour depth. A 3-D numerical model is developed to simulate the scour at bridge abutment using SSIIM program. This model solves 3-D Navier–Stokes equations and a bed load conservation equation. The k–ε turbulence model is used to solve the Reynolds-stress term. It was found the curvature shape of bridge abutment provided with collar could share to reduce the local scour depth by more 95%. In addition, the results of simulation models agree well with the experimental data.