Upper Bound of Abutment Scour in Laboratory and Field Data

The U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the South Carolina Department of Transportation, conducted a field investigation of abutment scour in South Carolina and used those data to develop envelope curves that define the upper bound of abutment scour. To expand on this previous work, an additional cooperative investigation was initiated to combine the South Carolina data with abutment scour data from other sources and evaluate upper bound patterns with this larger data set. To facilitate this analysis, 446 laboratory and 331 field measurements of abutment scour were compiled into a digital database. This extensive database was used to evaluate the South Carolina abutment scour envelope curves and to develop additional envelope curves that reflected the upper bound of abutment scour depth for the laboratory and field data. The envelope curves provide simple but useful supplementary tools for assessing the potential maximum abutment scour depth in the field setting.