Pile Group Protection with Riprap Mattress

New experimental data on plan dimensions for riprap mattresses used in pile group protection against edge failure are analyzed. The influence of flow conditions and the distance between piles in plan dimensions of riprap mattresses are addressed. An alternative methodology for the experimental study of edge failure in pile groups is proposed and verified, significantly reducing the duration of tests (from several days to a few hours) and yielding similar results. For the pile group configuration tested, a design expression for minimum riprap width is obtained. The influence of the distance between the piles on the width of riprap dimensions is shown to be small, and the proposed expression compares well with some of the expressions for single piers found in the literature.

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