Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU), NSF NHERI 2025: Scour Effects on Elevated Infrastructure due to Fluvial and Maritime Flows

In the scope of studying scour phenomena on coastal infrastructure, this project focuses on experimentally modeling hurricane waves to help enhance resilience of elevated infrastructure located in hurricane prone regions. The wave generation mechanism will extend the purpose of the experimental research, initially designed to characterize current-induced scour, to physically modeling realistic hurricane waves and studying scour induced by waves and combined current and waves on pile-supported structures. The data can be applied to flumes and projects of different scales to guide future projects on hurricane and storm surge wave modeling. This work is unique because it is a preliminary step in investigating scour due to current-wave flow on complex pile foundations. This project targets researchers in coastal engineering, structural engineering, and natural hazard mitigation who are interested in the characterization of scour phenomena and fluid-structure-soil interaction.