Scour Monitoring

There are a large number of buried infrastructures (e.g., pipelines, bridge support) under rivers and other water flows, where scour can lead to loss of soil cover and exposure of the structure. The exposed structures are then at much higher risk of a resulting failure or damage. UBC researchers have developed a system that measures the key local ambient parameters at the buried structure to provide critical data on the status of the potential exposure of buried structures. The UBC soil scour monitoring system provides the asset management bodies an added key parameter to assess the integrity of various structures buried under water bodies remotely, without the need for professionals performing on-site measurements. The system not only tells when the structure is exposed to water bodies, but also determines the depth of soil cover above the structure at any time. It can monitor parameters at consistent time intervals or at every unusual event such as flood – especially considering that personnel access is not possible. Meir Deutsch meir.deutsch@uilo.ubc.ca (+1) 604-822-9395