Assessing the suitability of bridge-scour-monitoring devices

Abstract

Bridge scour is a complex bridge-management problem. It is also a difficult forensic engineering challenge, as the greatest risk occurs during large flows and flood events, when visual inspection of the bridge piers is often not possible. This paper presents a review of scour prediction and modelling methods, whose results are used to determine the key parameters that scour-monitoring systems need to capture. Then, a review of existing monitoring approaches and technologies for scour monitoring is presented. The paper concludes with the proposal of a novel rating system for evaluating different scour-monitoring techniques. The new rating system is trialled ex-post for seven previously published bridge-scour-monitoring case studies to illustrate the use of the new methodology.