Investigation of Empirical Prediction Equations for Maximum Scour Depth Under a Single Pipeline in River Flows

Abstract

River flows could form a local scour hole beneath the pipelines which transporting fluids in the bed. The scour hole influences the safe performance of these infrastructures and may cause some damage. Therefore, a prediction of the maximum scour hole has been a necessary task. This study examines the empirical equations derived from laboratory studies presented for calculating scour hole depth. For this purpose, data from the physical tests of the laboratory model of a single pipeline scour in the riverbed were collected. Then, the accuracy of the empirical equations in the prediction of the maximum scour depth was examined and compared. To improve the accuracy of the empirical equations, considering their simple applications, the modified equations were developed by similar forms of the empirical equations by keeping the effective parameters constant, and changing the constant coefficients. The computed values of the statistical indices R, RMSE, MAPE, and SI revealed the acceptable improvement of the developed equations in the prediction of the maximum scour hole depth below pipelines in a river environment under unidirectional flow.