Scour

Drawing up on a wealth of knowledge about the scouring process, our team has a deep understanding of the needs of our clients when it comes to ensuring structural assets maintain their integrity.

Bridge scour is classified as one of the four biggest risks to railway infrastructure, in the context of climate change. Unfortunately, bridge scour is not easily detectable and requires a thorough assessment to establish if a structure is undermined.

FJD Consulting offers Stage 1 and Stage 2 Scour Assessment services that are targeted towards identifying scouring issues, analysing the impact they have on the structure, and if required, designing mitigation measures.

Considering that bridge scour can have a negative impact on the safety of the railway transport infrastructure, carrying out an accurate assessment is paramount. Lead by Nick Ankrah, a former Network Rail Bridge Engineer with a wealth of experience in the sector, our team of Asset Managers is part of the technical advisory group of Network Rail’s National Coastal River Defence. This allows us to provide specialist design solutions to combat scour damage, following the procedure set by Network Rail.

In addition to that, the use of 3D zonal inspection hydrographic techniques to survey rivers are used to inform our assessments and ensure accuracy.

FEATURED PROJECT: River Derwent Underbridge, Scour remediation
The scope of the project was to provide scour protection to River Derwent in Derbyshire. As part of the project, we reviewed the as-built drawings, undertook site coring / ground investigation in collaboration with our geotechnical engineering department, built a hydraulic model of the river and predicted the design scour depth. Using this data we were able to demonstrate that the foundations were below the threshold required for remediation – thereby saving the client between £500,000 – £1,000,000. The project team was formed of Network Rail, STORY Contracting and Henderson Thomas Associates who undertook the hydrographic survey.