The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) has released a Memorandum implementing the new Technical Brief (TechBrief) “Hydraulic Considerations for Shallow Foundation Abutments.” The TechBrief provides programmatic and technical considerations for evaluating and mitigating abutment scour at bridges with shallow foundations. This information supersedes certain materials on shallow foundations in two FHWA Hydraulic Engineering Circulars (HEC-18 “Evaluating Scour at Bridges” and HEC-23 “Bridge Scour and Stream Instability Countermeasures”), and provides an improved pressure scour method for use with the document “Design and Construction Guideline for Geosynthetic Reinforced Soil Abutment and Integrated Bridge Systems.”
Questions on the implementation of this guidance can be made directly to Mr. Paul Sharp, P.E., Office of Bridges and Structures (paul.sharp@dot.gov) or Dr. Kornel Kerenyi, Ph.D., Office of Infrastructure Research and Development (kornel.kerenyi@dot.gov).
FHWA Memorandum of Tech Brief Hydraulic Considerations for Shallow Abutment Foundations
FHWA-HIF-19-007 TechBrief of Hydraulic Consideration for Shallow Abutment Foundations