SCOUR ABOUT A SINGLE, CYLINDRICAL PILE DUE TO COMBINED RANDOM WAVES AND A CURRENT

Abstract

There have been many studies of scour around piles caused by waves, and some studies of scour by waves and currents combined. However, almost all of the studies were conducted with monochromatic waves. The purpose of this investigation was to study what scouring effects various currents and random waves have on a single, cylindrical pile. These results were then compared with the results from previous studies of scour resulting from currents and monochromatic waves at Texas A&M University (Armbrust, 1982 and Wang, 1983). Experiments were conducted in a two-dimensional wave tank. The pile used in this study had a diameter of 1.5 inches. Two water depths, four currents, one sediment size and four random wave spectra were utilized. Using data obtained from the experiments, an attempt was made to describe scour in terms of relevant dimensionless parameters.