Recent advances in scour hydraulics

Failure of hydraulic structures by scour is a recent research topic in hydraulics, following spectacular losses of hydraulic structures mainly during floods. The research addressed in this paper refers to two types of scour, namely plunge pool scour and scour related to bridge structures. Based on recent research, the main results are presented along with descriptions on the reasons for scour progress and the basic concepts in which the scour features are hydraulically described. All results were collected from systematic model observations given that numerical predictions are complicated by a highly three dimensional two-phase flow in bridge scour, and even a three-phase flow in plunge pool scour. The current observations may aid to define the missing items needed for numerical scour analysis in the future. It is also stated that both the experimental and the numerical approaches will be required in the future to deal with complicated problems of scour in general.