Essential Site Maintenance: Authorea-powered sites will be updated circa 15:00-17:00 Eastern on Tuesday 5 November.
There should be no interruption to normal services, but please contact us at [email protected] in case you face any issues.

loading page

Flume Experiments on the Geometry of Local Scour Holes at Boulder-Like Obstructions during Unsteady Flow Conditions: Part II - Enlargement Processes and the Impact of Hydrograph Chronology
  • Oliver Schlömer,
  • Jurgen Herget
Oliver Schlömer
University of Bonn

Corresponding Author:[email protected]

Author Profile
Jurgen Herget
University of Bonn
Author Profile

Abstract

Local scouring is typically a bed load transport phenomenon that is well studied at bridge piers while less attention is given to the enlargement processes of local scour holes at natural instream obstacles like boulders. This specifically applies to changing hydraulic boundary conditions at the obstacle in the course of flood hydrographs while physical modelling in flumes offers the advantage that hydraulic boundary conditions can be systematically varied. This second companion paper yields novel experimental data on the role of hydrographs of different shape and flow intensity onto enlargement processes of local scour holes at boulder-like obstructions and evaluates the impact of hydrographs chronology on the local scour hole geometry. In total 48 unscaled process-focussed flume experiments at a range of flows (subcritical, clear-water and live-bed conditions) were performed. Experimental results revealed that (1) the enlargement of local scour hole length and width depends on scour hole depth rather than on actual flow conditions while an empirical model is presented that mechanistically predicts enlargement in local scour length and width based on (i) scour depth, (ii) the inclination of scour slopes and (iii) the planform area of the scour hole bottom. (2) In the course of subsequent hydrographs memory effects (i.e. the dependence on antecedent sizes of local scour depth, length, and width) have to be considered. This contribution improves the understanding of local scouring at boulder-like obstacles exposed to hydrographs while it is speculated that the identified memory effect may be utilized for hydraulic interpretation at field condition.