The Growing Infrastructure Crisis: The Challenge of Scour Risk Assessment and the Development of a New Sensing System

Abstract

Scour action is one of the main factors that add significant stress to the growing infrastructure crisis as it is considered one of the most destructive flood-related hazards occurring around underwater foundation elements. Recent cases of bridge failures have highlighted the need for a reliable scour monitoring and early warning system to assess flood and geo-hazards in real-time, providing advanced key info for repair and maintenance actions. Despite the past efforts to provide such a system for scour assessment, most of the developed instruments were not able to offer a reliable solution for scour monitoring, due to technical and cost issues. As a result, there currently exists a gap in the knowledge and understanding of scour mechanism during flood incidents. This study presents the development of a new sensing system to assess hydro-hazards at bridge infrastructure. It initially focuses on factors contributing to the growing infrastructure crisis and provides an overview of the current practices and assessment procedures to assess scour processes and a summary of advantages and limitations of existing monitoring efforts. A new monitoring concept for assessing scour and sediment deposition processes is then presented focusing on modelling the geometric components of a new sensor which is evaluated in simulations under different environments that represent prospective field conditions. Main results are analysed and presented focusing on key criteria that maximize sensitivity of the sensor to scour and sedimentation processes. The obtained results indicate that the sensor has the potential to provide a new monitoring device for scour and sediment deposition monitoring, and it is proposed to be further developed and assessed in laboratory and field conditions. This study aspires to contribute to the ongoing discourse on the use of sensing techniques to monitor, assess, and manage scour action effectively.