ABSTRACT
Scour in rock from extreme or even normal flood events presents a challenging problem in civil engineering applications. As understanding of the scouring process evolves, prediction methodologies are shifting from empirical derivations to physics-based models simulating break-up of the rock mass. 3D geologic structure within a rock mass associated with jointing, bedding, faulting and shear zones, plays a significant role on rock block stability and is well documented in the rock mechanics community.
Despite this, representation of the rock mass in physics-based scour models has historical been done in a simplified manner using rectangular or cubic rock block geometries. This paper examines the influence of kinematic controls on erodibility thresholds of 3D (non-cubic) rock blocks developed from both scaled laboratory and prototype field testing. A theoretical predictive model using a block theory framework is also presented which is shown to yield good estimates for block erodibility thresholds (Fig. 1).
