JWSS - Journal of Water and Soil Science

The scour around the bridge piers is one of the main causes of bridge failure and the extraction of aggregates may aggravate this phenomenon. The present study comprehensively investigated the scour around the groups of bridge piers in the presence of aggregate extraction pits, using different discharges. The bridge piers roughened by gravel had been compared with the simple bridge piers; so, the results showed that the roughening caused the reduction of the scour depth. Scour depth change rate led to an increase in the equilibrium time. The results also showed that the reduction of the scour depth at the downstream groups of piers was more than that in the upstream. For the lowest discharge, the aggregate extraction pits had a considerable effect on the scour depth difference for the groups of piers in the downstream and upstream. On the other hand, the effects were decreased when the rate of discharge was increased. The experimental results obtained by the rough surface models showed that as the discharge was increased, the local scour was increased too; at the same time, the bed profile was posed at the low level. Generally, the scour depth of the groups of piers in the downstream of the extraction pit was more than that in the upstream. The results of the current research, therefore, demonstrated that the surface of the bridge pier roughened by gravel reduced the scour depth.

One of the crucial problems that exist in the irrigation networks is the fluctuation of the water surface flow in the main channel and changes in the flow rate of the intake structure. One of the effective methods to decrease these fluctuations is increasing the weir crest length at the given width of the channel with the use of the labyrinth weirs can be achieved for this purpose. The labyrinth weir is the same linear weir that is seen as broken in the plan view. In this study, a labyrinth weir with a length of 3.72 m, three different heights of 15, 17, and 20 cm, three different shapes of dentate (rectangular, triangular, and trapezoidal), and a linear weir were used in a recirculating flume with 15 m length and 1 m width. The result showed that for a given length and height of weir, with the increasing of the upstream water head to the weir height ratio (), the discharge coefficient decreases. The results showed that by increasing weir height, the discharge coefficient decreases for a given length of the weir. Linear weir and labyrinth weir without dentate create more water depth at the upstream by 3.3 and 1.2 fold compared with dentate labyrinth weir.