Discussion of 'Further Results to Time-Dependent Local Scour at Bridge Elements' by Giuseppe Oliveto and Willi H. Hager

摘要

Many studies on local scour around bridge piers have been reported in the literature, but investigations dealing with time-dependent scour under steady and especially under unsteady flow are still limited. The main reasons for this shortcoming have been expressed by the original paper. The paper experimentally investigated pier scour subject to flood waves, verifying that the equation proposed by Oliveto and Hager (2002) to estimate the temporal scour evolution under steady conditions applies also to such phenomena. However, the coefficient 0.068 in the equation had to be changed, so the superposition methodology is not fully satisfied. The main purpose of this discussion is to provide additional data to validate the computation scheme of scour depth for bridge piers under unsteady flow proposed in the original paper.