Experimental study on scour characteristics of the sheet-pile groin

Abstract

Abstract Spur dike is widely used to protect river bank in hydraulic engineering. However, the scour around spur dike caused by narrowing flow is often too deep to induce the failure of dike. In this paper, a new type of spur dike: sheet-pile groin is developed and the scour characteristics around it are studied based on experiment. The experiment results show that, compared with the solid spur dike of the same size, the maximum scour depth near the head of the sheet-pile groin reduces by averagely 30% under the same flow conditions. The sheet-pile groin makes the water flow away from itself and the shoreline. When there is an over-dam flow on the top of the spur dike, the sheet-pile groin has a stronger protective effect on the beach behind it than the solid spur dike does. The scouring and silting features of the local riverbed around the sheet-pile groin benefit the stability of the spur dike and the protection of the coastal beaches.