Local scouring at bridge piers and abutments: Time evolution and equilibrium

The problem of assessing the equilibrium scour depth at bridge piers and abutments received great attention in the last two decades. Also the time evolution of scouring was investigated by many authors, and different predictive formulae were proposed in the literature. In this work, laboratory data by different authors are analysed so as to verify the onset of the equilibrium state. The data sets are also used to compare some empirical formulae on the time evolution of the scour depth at piers or abutments. Finally, the minimum test duration for calculating the equilibrium scour depth by extrapolation is investigated by applying the Bertoldi & Jones (1998) formula to the data sets.