The concept of conservation of power during scour by the primary vortex formed in front of caisson piers is used to develop a relation for the temporal of scour depth variation. To test this relation, experiments were conducted using two sediment beds, three types of caisson piers and four relative flow depths. The agreement between the temporal variation of scour depths from the present approach and the literature data is good. The computed values of other researchers also agree fairly with the present proportionality constants. An expression for scour duration to reach the equilibrium scour depth is deduced from the power concept based on long duration literature data. The validity of this expression is verified for the equilibrium duration concept.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.