M.Hy.Bridge

The project aims at providing practitioners and stakeholders with updated and more organic insights on complex hydraulic phenomena concerning the interaction between scour processes and accumulation/impact of floating wood and debris flow on bridge piers during flood events, as well as in case of bridge submersion. To this end, critical/challenging scenarios, characterized by deck overtopping and pressure flow conditions, will be scrutinized. A comprehensive investigation will be conducted, involving experimental, theoretical and numerical analyses, aiming at furnishing more robust tools to predict hydraulic loading, dynamic forces due to debris impact, and scour features also under pressure flow conditions. In so doing, the outcomes of the projects will also contribute to improve current criteria to assess the vulnerability of river bridges and the design inputs (e.g., among others, the design discharge). Additionally, best practices to mitigate risk of failure of existing bridges and increase their resilience under challenging scenarios will be re-analyzed, considering results of novel experimental and numerical tests under above mentioned challenging configurations.