Author(s): Suniti Kumari; H. L. Tiwari; Rutuja Chavan
Linked Author(s):
Keywords: Scour morphology; FLOW3D hydro; Bridge pier
Abstract: Bridge pier scour remains a critical infrastructure concern, causing 53% of bridge failures in the United States between 1989-2000 (Wardhana and Hadipriono, 2003). The increasing prevalence of tandem pier arrangements, driven by urbanization, creates complex hydrodynamic interactions through vortex shedding, wake formation and flow acceleration between the piers. From the decades experimental studies have been extensively conducted to study scour around bridge piers (Chavan et al., 2020; Wardhana and Hadipriono, 2003). Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) has emerged as a cost-effective alternative for analyzing sediment transport, velocity distribution and turbulence characteristics around hydraulic structures (Kumari et al., 2025). This study utilizes FLOW 3D Hydro, a CFD software to numerically simulate the scour process around tandem pier arrangement. The primary objectives are: 1. To predict the flow characteristics such as depth average velocity, velocity profiles around tandem piers. 2. To analyze the scour morphology between upstream (U/S) and downstream (D/S) piers. By employing advanced CFD techniques, this work aims to enhance the accuracy of scour predictions, providing valuable insights for bridge piers design.
Year: 2025