SCOUR RISK INDEX BASED ON HYDROLOGICAL STATISTICS IN A CASE STUDY OF SCOUR DAMAGES ON RAILWAY BRIDGE PIER

Abstract

 In order to improve the quality of maintenance management against scour disasters, which threaten safe and stable railway transportation, it is necessary to identify river bridges with a high potential for damage by considering the influence of both bearing capacity and external forces that contribute to scour. In this study, in order to propose a scour risk index for railway bridge pier, we conducted a statistical analysis of the external forces in a river when a scour disaster occurs on a railway bridge, obtained dimensionless tractive forces and their normalized values, and compared and summarized the values for the damaged and unaffected cases. The results showed that there is a certain linear relationship between the normalized values of failure and the penetration ratio of bridge foundation. The results also indicated that by comparing the return period of the normalized values corresponding to the penetration ratio, it may be possible to identify bridges that are at high risk of scouring relatively.