An hydraulic monitoring system on a Bridge over river Esino, Italy

Bridge pier scour (Ballio and Orsi, 2001) is one of the most common causes of bridge collapses. The most critical situation is the flood condition, when pier scour depth can become high and its time-evolution is relatively fast. As available models are unable to predict scour development with sufficient accuracy, several methods have been developed allowing for in situ scour measurements (Lin et al, 2005 and De Falco and Mele, 2002). The application case of this work is the Scisciano Bridge (Province of Ancona, Italy) on the Esino River, partially collapsed during the flood in 1990 by local scour erosion. Nowadays this newly built bridge is in a crucial position because it connects two Loccioni Group buildings. Inside the Flumen project, sponsored by Loccioni, a monitoring system is being developed to manage the bridge during floods.