JWSS - Journal of Water and Soil Science

River bend due to particular pattern, called 'Vortex Flow,' has greater erosion than straight path. Occurrence of scour around bridge abutment on curved paths is one of the main reasons for destruction of bridges. Riprap is one of the methods to control the scouring around the bridge abutment. The purpose of this study was to assess stability of the riprap around the bridge abutment at 180 degree river bend. In order to study stability of riprap around the bridge abutment, experiments were done in a laboratory flume made of Plexiglas under 180 degree bend, 2.8 m in central radius, 0.6 m in width and  R/B=4.67.  In this research, several experiments were done by placing a bridge abutment with vertical winged wall made of Plexiglas surrounded by a series of riprap.  Experiments were done by three different types of riprap with different density 1.7, 2.1 and 2.42, four different diameters 4.76, 9.52, 12.7 and 19.1 mm and four rates of discharge under pure water condition. In each experiment, flow depth was measured in terms of moving threshold and failure threshold and then the formulas were calculated by using data obtained. The results showed that the relative diameter of riprap increased with increasing Froude number in terms of moving threshold and failure threshold. Finally, the suitable formula to estimate diameter of riprap around the bridge abutment at 180 degree bend were presented in terms of moving threshold and failure threshold.

Optimization of artificial intelligence (AI) models is a significant issue because it enhances the performance and flexibility of the numerical models. In this study, scour depth around bridge abutments with different shapes was estimated by means of ANFIS and ANFIS-Genetic Algorithm. In other words, the membership functions of the ANFIS model were optimized using the genetic algorithm, finding that the performance of ANFIS model was increased. Firstly, effective input parameters on the scour depth around bridge abutments were defined. Then, by using the input parameters, eleven ANFIS and ANFIS-GA models were produced. Next, the superior ANFIS and ANFIS-GA models were introduced by analyzing the numerical results. For example, the correlation coefficient and scatter index for ANFIS model were calculated to be 0.979 and 0.070; for ANFIS-GA, these were 0.986 and 0.056, respectively. In addition, the average discrepancy ratio (DR_ave) for ANFIS and ANFIS-GA models was 0.984 and 0.988, respectively. Also, it was shown that the ANFIS-GA models had more accuracy, as compared to the ANFIS models. Moreover, a sensitivity analysis showed that Froude number (Fr) and ratio of flow depth to radius of scour hole (h/L) were the most influential input parameters for simulating the scour depth around bridge abutments.

In the past, various methods have been proposed to control beach heel scouring.  For shallow rivers (such as mountain rivers), various types of overflows are used.  Therefore, the development of scour in cross-vane and w-weir structures for coastal protection was investigated in this study.  The results showed that by installing a w-weir structure in a 90-degree position compared to a 30 and 60-degree position, a 37.9% and 19.7% reduction of scouring was observed, respectively.  Also, by installing the cross vane structure in the 90-degree position compared to the 30 and 60-degree position, a 35.4% and 21.2% reduction of scouring was observed, respectively. With increasing width (L / B) (ratio of the width of structure to the width of flume), the w-weir structure decreased from 1.5 to 2, scour rate of 7.9%.  Also, with increasing width (L / B) (ratio of the width of structure to the width of flume), the cross-vane structure has decreased from 1.3 to 1.7, and the scour rate has decreased by 4.7%. The w-weir structure had an average of 7.3% less scouring than the cross-vane structure.