The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) has given our national infrastructure, especially instream structures (e.g., bridges), a "D" grade because of the declining state of aging infrastructure and lack of appropriate maintenance. Although bridges are critical in transportation network, their real-time behavior during extreme and hazardous flood events is largely unknown, particularly, because bridge scour prediction is based on steady flow experiments in laboratory. This contributes to the difficulties to acquire comprehensive full-scale scour data during inaccessible flood flows and inability to simulate rapidly varied unsteady flow and local scour processes around and over those in-stream structures. This project aims to develop a bio-inspired scour monitoring network consisting of low-cost wireless smart sonar sensors to mimic the electric fish's adaptive skin sensing methods for comprehensive scour topography monitoring around bridge piers, and enhance an unsteady flow hydrodynamic and sediment transport model for predicting local scour due to highly convective flood waves around structures. The results will supplement field data for the state and local flood control agencies to evaluate current bridge design principles and revise/modify the design criteria to improve its safety. The field sites will be used for faculty and students to develop innovative research ideas. The project will also provide students enrolled in the University of Arizona Civil Engineering an opportunity to study bridge scour using real-time data.
This project's objectives will be achieved through the development of an innovative scour monitoring network, computational simulations, large-scale physical experiments, and field monitoring. The project will develop an algorithm to deploy low cost high-density sonar sensor array for monitoring bridge scour. The sensing network will be tested and installed in the field to collect real-time bridge scour data during flood events. Additionally, an advanced computational model will be developed to simulate the local scour processes. The project expects to advance the scour monitoring technologies for bridge piers in flood flow, provide valuable data to examine the feasibility of existing design criteria, and recommend new design considerations for bridges prone to extreme flood flows. The unique laboratory and real-time field data will better the understanding of bridge scour during unsteady flow.
