Level II scour analysis for Bridge 40 (BETHTH00230040) on Town Highway 23, crossing Gilead Brook, Bethel, Vermont

Open-File Report 96-198
Prepared in cooperation with Vermont Agency of Transportation and Federal Highway Administration
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Abstract

This report provides the results of a detailed Level II analysis of scour potential at structure BETHTH00230040 on town highway 23 crossing Gilead Brook, Bethel, Vermont (figures 1–8). A Level II study is a basic engineering analysis of the site, including a quantitative analysis of stream stability and scour (U.S. Department of Transportation, 1993). A Level I study is included in Appendix E of this report. A Level I study provides a qualitative geomorphic characterization of the study site. Information on the bridge, gleaned from VTAOT files, was compiled prior to conducting the Level I and Level II analyses and can be found in Appendix D. The site is in the Green Mountain physiographic province of central Vermont in the town of Bethel. The 10.2-mi2 drainage area is in a predominantly rural and forested basin. In the vicinity of the study site, the banks have moderately dense woody vegetation coverage. In the study area, the Gilead Brook has an incised, sinuous channel downstream of the site and a meandering channel upstream, with narrow flood plains and a slope of approximately 0.015 ft/ft, an average channel top width of 47.0 ft and an average channel depth of 2.75 ft. The predominant channel bed materials are gravel and cobble (D50 is 94.8 mm or 0.311 ft). The geomorphic assessment at the time of the Level I and Level II site visit on October 14, 1994, indicated that the reach was laterally unstable. The town highway 23 crossing of Gilead Brook is a 37-ft-long, one-lane bridge consisting of one 34-foot span steel-stringer type superstructure (Vermont Agency of Transportation, written commun., August 24, 1994). The bridge is supported by vertical, concrete abutments with concrete wingwalls. The channel is skewed 25 degrees to the opening and the opening-skew-to-roadway is zero degrees. A scour hole 1.0 ft deeper than the mean thalweg depth was observed along the downstream right wingwall during the Level I assessment. The scour protection measures at the site were type-2 stone fill (less than 36 inches diameter) on the upstream and downstream right roadway embankments, at the extreme upstream and downstream ends of the upstream and downstream right wingwalls, and along the entire base length of the downstream left wingwall. Additional details describing conditions at the site are included in the Level II Summary and Appendices D and E. Scour depths and rock rip-rap sizes were computed using the general guidelines described in Hydraulic Engineering Circular 18 (Richardson and others, 1993). Scour depths were calculated assuming an infinite depth of erosive material and a homogeneous particle-size distribution. The scour analysis results are presented in tables 1 and 2 and a graph of the scour depths is presented in figure 8.

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Publication type Report
Publication Subtype USGS Numbered Series
Title Level II scour analysis for Bridge 40 (BETHTH00230040) on Town Highway 23, crossing Gilead Brook, Bethel, Vermont
Series title Open-File Report
Series number 96-198
DOI 10.3133/ofr96198
Year Published 1996
Language English
Publisher U.S. Geological Survey
Description iv, 31 p.
Country United States
State Vermont
City Bethel
Other Geospatial Gilead Brook
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