ABSTRACT
The scouring process represents a significant contributing factor in the destabilising and destruction of civil structures (bridges, earth embankments and buildings) during major flood events, yet our understanding of the mechanisms involved remains highly empirical. These erosion phenomena are especially complex and involve many disciplines like soil mechanics, fluid mechanics or structural mechanics…
To overcome this reliance on empiricism, while building general knowledge and proposing optimised methods aimed at diagnostics, advanced warning procedures and infrastructure management, a consortium comprising six complementary partners has been formed within the project SSHEAR (“Soils, Structures and Hydraulics: Expertise and Applied Research”) financially supported by the French National Research Agency (ANR).
The complementarities of the partners offer a major asset to the project, namely: a specialist in soils and fluid mechanics with extensive field practice (Ifsttar); geotechnical and hydraulic engineers together with sedimentologists (Cerema); physicists and engineers focusing on complex systems (FAST); infrastructure management companies (Vinci Autoroutes and SNCF Reseau); and a technological research institute, or IRT (Railenium). This combined set of diverse skills has made it possible to start a wide range of new research on the scouring process and its consequences:
– from feedback and measurements in the field to a multi-scale investigation of phenomena
– from experimentation to numerical modeling
– from fundamental science aspects to engineering aspects
– from new knowledge acquisition to practical solutions implemented by end-users.
It is proposed to make an assessment of the results achieved since the project started in 2015: experimental developments and testing devices; numerical modeling; feedback and measurements in the field.
