Laboratory Evaluation of Time-Domain Reflectometry for Bridge Scour Measurement: Comparison with the Ultrasonic Method

Bridge scour is a major factor causing instability of bridges crossing waterways. Excessive scour contributes to their high construction and maintenance costs. Design of innovative scour-monitoring instrumentation is essential to ensure the safety of scour-critical bridges. The ability of real-time surveillance is important since the most severe scour typically happens near the peak flood discharge. A new scour-monitoring instrument based on the Time Domain Reflectometry (TDR) principle has been developed to provide real-time monitoring of scour evolution. A framework based on dielectric mixing model has been developed, which can be easily incorporated into an automatic analysis algorithm. This paper introduces a comparative study of TDR method and ultrasonic method for scour measurements. The results indicate that both TDR and ultrasonic methods can accurately estimate scour depth. TDR method, with the developed analysis algorithm, yields information on the river properties such as the electrical conductivity of river water and the density of sediments. TDR methods are also found less influenced by turbulence and air bubbles, both likely to occur during flood events.

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