One of the main causes of bridge collapse may be flood flow scour near piers. Several experimental and local field investigations were carried out to study scour depth. However, existing empirical equations do not commonly provide accurate scour prediction due to the complexity of the scour process. Physical and economic considerations often lead to bridge foundation constructs which included a pier column based on a pile cap supported by an array of piles. Piers with this configuration are referred to as complex piers. A few studies have been done on complex bridge pier scour depth estimation. Such efforts may be classified into theoretical and empirical equations. This paper investigates local scour around complex bridge piers by using harmony search algorithm under clear water conditions. Statistical indices such as the coefficient of determination (R2), root mean square error (RMSE), mean absolute error (MAE), mean absolute percentage error (MAPE), and bias were used to evaluate the performance of these methods. By designing laboratory tests, 82 experimental data points were measured by authors. Also 615 experimental data sets with the same measured experimental conditions were collected from published literature and used for optimization. The results show that the developed HS model can predict scour depth better than other equations according to statistical indices.

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