Eng.

Roberto Zanon - Glossary and Bridge Engineering approach

Theory and design of Ecole nationale supérieure de

travaux publics

bridges Yaoundé - June 2017

Essential glossary
Parapet

…the soil!
e
r at
g
v el
a
Gr

Clearance = clear height

Beam
Span

Abutment
Shallow foundation

Deep Foundation = piles

…an opportunity to remember that a bridge is mainly a structure in its

environment; You must not forget this last!!
it is not only a deck, but piers, abutments, foundations too and ….
 An example of interaction of the bridge with the environment:
scouring phenomenon

❖ if you have to put a pier inside a

river bed it borns an interaction
with the fluid flow!
❖ As in any case when there is an
interaction with a moving fluid it
gives two forces: draft one (in
direction of movement) and lift
one (perpendicular to the direction
of the movement); but these are
not important actions.
❖ the most important effect is the
scouring!! It can cause the collapse
of the bridge.
Sonar pictures of the situation of pier foundations in a river bed
Local scouring
Total scour is the sum of three phenomenons: the degradation
on the river bed, the contraction scour and the local scour.
ds= ∆d + dSC + dSL
The degradation depends from the general behaviour of the
river, the contraction scour happens when there is a
contraction on the wideness of the river bed (for the bridge or
other), the local scour depends from the interaction of the
single pier with the current.
The first two parts are a more general hydraulic problems
and they are for our colleagues, but the local scour must be
considered our problem too.
Local pier scour depth is influenced by:
pier shape, alignment respect channel flow, characteristics of the
channel and approach flow.
General criteria: ratio of pier scour to width for round-nosed piers
(dSP/bP) is no more 2.3 or 2.4 when F<0.8 rising to about 3.0 for
larger F values.
F is the Froude number: F= V/(gY)1/2 where: V= characteristic velocity of
flow, g = gravity and Y = the characteristic depth of the river (F<1
subcritical flow, F=1 critical flow, F>1 supercritical flow; with F<1 a
gravity wave can propagate upstream so upstream is in communication
with downstream…)
There are different formulas to evaluate the pier scouring, one of
them is:
dSP = 2.0 Y2 K1P K2P K3P (bP/Y2)0.65 F20.43
where:
With piers that comprise trestle or pile bents or groups of cylinders, the scour depth
depends upon the column spacings.
If spacing is ≥ 5 diameters, dSP is 1.2 times the scour depth of a single cylinder.
If spacing is <5 diameters it is ignored and L is the sum of the diameters
to use for the K2P in the next table
 Y2 e F2 is the flow depth (m)
and the Froude number at the
bridge section directly
upstream of the bridge.

N.B.: The preceding formula

does not consider the grain
size of the material
constituting the bed of the
river.
Other formulas make this
referring usually to the
medium diameter of the
particles d50 (the grain
diameter that is ≥ grain
diameters of 50% of the
material)
Other formula: you have to intend f(…) as
“function of …” instead in Vc
expression (…) is really a
multiplication for…
where:
Y0 is the depth of the undisturbed bed
YS is dSP
b the width of the pier orthogonal to the flow
V0 is the medium velocity of the undisturbed flow
VC is the critic dragging velocity of the grains with “d” diameter; for the mixture
they use d50 so:
𝛾s is specific weight of the material of the bed and 𝛾 is the one of the water
𝛼 is the angle between pier axis and the flow direction

f1 “remember” the connection between the

medium grain dimensions and the velocity
f1=0 for (V0/VC)≤0,5
f1=2 V0/VC-1 for 0,5<(V0/VC)≤1,0
f1=1 for (V0/VC)>1,0

f2 is a shape coefficient
1,00 for rounded shape of pier front, 1,30
for rectangular pier and 0,75 for
hydrodynamic shape (as a wing profile)
f4 takes into account the presence of other piers within the distance “a” from the pier axis
f4 = 1 + 1,79/(a/b-1)0,695 for a/b ≤4
f4 = 2,95-0,278(a/b) for 4<a/b<7
f4 = 1 for a/b ≥ 7

Note: All the above formulas are experimentally derived so there are not theoretical demonstrations

The top width of the hole around the pier because of the scouring can be estimated in:
5,6dSP + bP

And for abutment?… What happens?

The situation in this case is very complicated:
- near the shore it is very difficult to define an average velocity to use in formulas
- which is the length of the occupation of the river bed because of the
embankment behind the abutment?
- which is the angle (the orientation) of this obstacle with the main flow?
- the presence of vegetation can reduce the effect of scouring
- ….
The formulas are similar to the above ones (obviously with other coefficients) but
their application is more unsure and the results must be take with great prudence.
It is better operating with particular hydraulic attention…and specific
modelling…
“Exercises with the students”.

– See: Exercises on scouring.pdf

 Formulas are useful…
but what is the main lesson from preceding everything?

1) It is better put piers and abutment out of the river bed!!

For example respecting the river embankments,

“jumping” with the deck over them

2) with very wide river bed it is not possible, you need to put some piers in the river!!
then the pier number must be minimized or the spans have to be maximized.
Practically: Span ≥ 40 m!

3) In any case the abutments

should be out of the zone where is
the interaction with the flow!!
This is also valid for the floodplain (golene),
in the very wide rivers that include them.
 It is important to know the depth of scouring because it is proportional to
the thickness of the pier,
so if the flow “read” the wideness of foundation (that generally is wider
than the pier) the depth increase a lot! So:
4) You have to put the foundation plinth under the scouring depth referred
to the pier shaft!!!

5) You can protect the piers and the abutment from the scouring!
Scouring happens in cohesion-less soil (gravel, sand) and depends from the dimension
of the grain (smaller it is, bigger is the scour depth).
You can increase the dimension of the grain around the pier, substituting the original
material with rock blocks;
or you can increase artificially the cohesion by injection of some binder (cement) in the
original material, or using metallic cages (made of metallic net; gabions) full of
granular material.

These are very delicate interventions, because a local setup can be read from the
flow as a enlargement of the pier with obvious consequences, so usually the
intervention is extended to the entire river bed or a big part of it.
A river bed protection in South Africa by gabions and mattresses
Riprap protection of an abutment
with shallow grouting
 A complete protection of the river bed
by gabions

An example not to follow ——>

An embankment inside the

golena is a serious problem
when there is a flood! You
need to protect it but it is
always a brittle solution!
It’s better to evitate.
 Debris flow: another problem when you
overpass a river

❖ a wide span is useful to permit the passage of the floating debris (span ≥ 40m)
❖ debris can accumulate on the piers increasing the hydrodynamic forces on them,
an estimation of the this force is: F=0.517V2 A [kN], where
V is the flow velocity [m/s]
A [m2] is the area of the trapped debris estimated in 1.2m x L[m]
L is the wideness of the trapped debris
❖ heavy debris (floating logs) can also give significant impact force on the piers
if M is the mass of floating log and V is the velocity of the flow (the same of the log)
the kinetic energy is 0.5MV2 that is adsorbed by the impact force and
a referring displacement “d”; in the practical cases it is estimated between 75mm
and 150mm for rigid structure (massive piers) or more flexible ones respectively.
So F=0.5MV2/d with congruent units.
Debris could hit the deck too, if it is too low in
front of the maximum flood level !!!
The hydraulic engineering tell us what is the maximum level of water we have to expect!
Usually they consider a return time of 200 years.
But in some cases they consider 500 years too!

Established this level the intrados of deck (the lowest edge down to the river)
has to be at least 1m (one meter) over.

Often if the river is dammed (the embankments must have the top level one meter over the
maximum level) you can touch on the top with the intrados of the deck.

If the deck is too low the flow hits it!

and the force of the drag can be estimated with the formula:

kN/m

CD is the coefficient of drag (dimensionless) and it is between 2.0 and 2.2

H is in meters and it is the height of the submerged part
“ro” is the water density in kg/m3 and V is in m/s
and now… Exercise!!!
Is it a good solution for that place?

Tied-arch bridge
Langer scheme
 Is it a good solution for that place?

Cable -stayed bridge

Harp scheme
…other cases to evaluate…

Suspension bridge
 In any case this does not look a good solution!
There are too many piers!

It is not a good solution!!

Too many piers for a small river!
 Summary
• we have learnt the main words for the bridge
world
• we have understood that a bridge is not only a deck
• a bridge has to be conceived in its environment
• we have analyzed one of the possible interactions
with the environment: 

the interaction with a river (a notable case)
• we have seen the toolkit to govern similar
situations
• Indirectly we have seen different kinds of bridges
• Now we should have a clearer idea about what is:

BRIDGE ENGINEERING