Impacts of bridge piers on water level during ice jammed period in bend channel——An experimental study

Experiments are carried out in an ＂S-shaped＂ flume in the laboratory under both open flow and ice-jammed conditions to study the impacts of bridge piers in a bend channel on the variation of the water level. The variations of the water level under the ice jammed condition with bridge piers are compared to those without bridge piers in an 180° bend channel. Results indicate that the bridge piers in the S-shaped channel have obvious impacts on the ice accumulation and the water level. The increment of the water level with the presence of the bridge piers is less than that without the bridge piers in the channel. Different arrangements of the bridge piers result in different increments of the water level. When one bridge pier is installed in the straight section of the channel（between 2 bends） and another one at the bend apex（for a convex bank）, the increment of the water level during the equilibrium ice jammed period is between that with a single bridge pier located in the straight section of the bend channel and that with a single bridge pier located at the bend apex. It is also shown that the increment of the water level during the equilibrium ice jammed period increases with the increase of the average thickness of the ice jams.