Characteristics of Vortex Structure and Its Shear Velocity in a Scour Hole

At downstream part of the hydraulic structures such as spiliway or drainage gate, jet flow can occur by gate opening. If stream bed is not hard or bed protection is not sufficient, scour hole will be formed due to high shear stress of the jet flow. We call this primary scour. Once the scour hole is formed, a vortex occurs in it and this vortex causes additional scour. We call this secondary scour. The primary scour proceeds to downstream together with flow direction but the secondary one proceeds to upstream direction opposite to it. If the secondary one continues and reaches to the hydraulic structure, it can undermine the bottom of hydraulic structure and this will lead to failure of structure itself. Thus, it is necessary to know the physical features of the vortex structure in a scour hole, which is the main mechanism of the secondary scour. This study deals with the characteristics of the vortex structure and its shear stress which causes the secondary scour.