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Reliability Analysis of a Complex Pier Against Local Scour

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Abstract

A precise estimation of scour depth at the bridge foundation is of paramount importance for engineers to maintain the safety levels of the bridge foundation under natural scour conditions. Scour is considered to be a major cause of bridge failure, and hence it must not reach the pier foundation depth to prevent such failure of the bridge. Recently, many scour prediction models at the complex piers have been reported in the literature. However, most of the available equations for the computation of scour depth at complex bridge piers are deterministic in nature, and the uncertainties associated with scouring parameters are not considered adequately in the analysis. A reliability-based assessment of pier scour depth suitably accounts for uncertainties in basic parameters of scour and provides a relation of safety factors with reliability leading to significant parameters in bridge foundation design. An attempt was, therefore, made to develop a reliability-based scour depth prediction model at a complex bridge pier. An object-oriented constrained optimization using an efficient spreadsheet algorithm for First-Order Reliability Method (FORM) has been used for the reliability analysis. The reliability-based safety factor for target reliability is proposed to obtain the desired safety level in the design of the pier foundation depending upon the probability of failure, importance, and stability requirements. It has been found that not only the mean value, but also the uncertainties in various parameter play a significant role in the reliability of a pier. The sensitivity analysis indicates that the model correction factor and pier width have a dominant effect on reliability of pier as compared to other variables.

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  1. Department of Civil Engineering, Aligarh Muslim University (AMU), Aligarh, India

    Mohd Muzzammil, Javed Alam, Krishna kumar & Mohd Khalid

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  1. Mohd Muzzammil
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Correspondence to Mohd Khalid.

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Muzzammil, M., Alam, J., kumar, K. et al. Reliability Analysis of a Complex Pier Against Local Scour. J. Inst. Eng. India Ser. A 103, 1237–1245 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40030-022-00699-1

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