A Study on Risk Assessment of Scour vulnerable Bridges

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Thesis Type: Postgraduate

Institution Of The Thesis: Middle East Technical University, Faculty of Engineering, Department of Civil Engineering, Turkey

Approval Date: 2010

Thesis Language: English

Student: Meriç Apaydın

Supervisor: Ali Melih Yanmaz

Abstract:

Many river bridges fail or are seriously damaged due to excessive local scouring around piers and abutments. To protect a bridge from scour-induced failure, it should be designed properly against excessive scouring and its scour criticality should be checked regularly throughout the service life to take prompt action. The Federal Highway Administration of United States (FHWA) developed a program, HYRISK, as a basis for evaluation of existing scour failure risk of a bridge. It provides implementation of a risk-based model, which is used to calculate the annual risk of scour failure of a bridge or series of bridges in monetary values. A case study is carried out for a bridge crossing Fol Creek in Black Sea Region (close to Vakfıkebir), for the illustration of this software. Besides, hydraulic analysis and scour depth computations of the bridge are carried out via HEC-RAS program. Also, a study is carried out to recommend scour countermeasures that can be applied to the aforementioned bridge.