Development of Scour Monitoring Methods Based on Scour Effect Analysis

Abstract

Bridge scour is a major cause of bridge failures and is of significant concerns in the United States. Most previous studies focus on investigating the causes of scour but not on its consequences. Therefore, very few researches have been carried out on the response and feature changes of structures due to scour. The present paper mainly studied the scour effect on a single pile or pier. A theoretical solution was derived first to obtain the relationship between the scour depth and the pile response. Based on the observation, the present study proposed three possible methods for detecting and monitoring the bridge scour. Finally, a monitoring system using fiber optic sensors was designed and tested in the laboratory to verify the monitoring mechanisms.