Enhancing scour protection in river bends: a novel slotted bank-attached vane

Abstract

Abstract One of the most effective approaches for bank control erosion is using bank-attached vanes. In spite of the superiority of the bank-attached vanes to spur dikes, the vanes' tips are still vulnerable to local scour caused by flow–structure interaction. In this study, slotted bank-attached vanes are proposed to reduce local scour at the tip of the triangular submerged vane. For this, a rectangular slot is created parallel to the chord of the vane with an area of ten percent of the effective area of the vane surface. Two types of conventional vanes and slotted vanes were installed at different angles of attack of 23, 30, 40 and 60 degrees in an arch flume. Experiments were carried out in clear water conditions with different flow regimes with Froude numbers of Fr = 0.287, 0.304 and 0.322. The results show that the slotted vane outperforms the conventional vane by reducing maximum scour depth by about 70, 20, 17 and 54 percent for different angles of attack of 23, 30, 40 and 60 degrees, respectively. The proposed slotted vane also resulted in reduction of scour hole volume around the vane and formed the scour hole away from the outer bank.