Arizona Local Government Bridge Scour Evaluation Study

by Bart S. Bergendahl,
Raymond C. Jordan,



Document Type: Proceeding Paper

Part of: North American Water and Environment Congress & Destructive Water

Abstract:

The Federal Highway Administration has mandated that the scour susceptibility of existing bridges over waterways and open to the travelling public be evaluated. With large numbers of highway bridges and limited funding, scour evaluation procedures must maximize the use of existing information and prudent engineering judgement and minimize the amount of field investigation and in-depth analysis. Such procedures were developed for the Arizona Department of Transportation by Simons, Li & Associates, Inc. of Tempe, Arizona to evaluate locally-owned bridges. The evaluation process divides the bridges into two broad categories according to waterway type and foundation characteristics. Depending upon category and foundation type, two levels of standard analysis are described in detail: one qualitative and one quantitative. Only two conclusions regarding scour susceptibility are possible: scour stable or scour critical. Bridges evaluated through a qualitative procedure are declared scour critical or scour stable, while bridges evaluated through a quantitative analysis are calculated scour critical or scour stable.

Subject Headings: Scour | Bridge tests | Highway bridges | Bridge foundations | Waterways | Quantitative analysis | Quality control | Arizona | United States

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