LAHORE  - Engineer Mujahaid Khan, Assistant Professor, Civil Engineering Department University of Engineering and Technology (UET) has successfully completed his Ph.D defence on 'Bridge Pier Scour Depth Prediction using Artificial Intelligence Techniques'.
The study has focused on highway bridges, as a means of transportation playing a major role in the economy of a country. The bridges that are constructed over waterways are highly subjected to failure due to scouring. Bridge scour poses a serious threat to the integration of bridges and as such is a very critical issue that needs to be properly addressed.
The failure of bridges due to scour results in precious human as well as economic losses. Therefore, keeping in view the need to ensure public safety and minimise the adverse effects of bridge damages or closures, Dr Khan urged the need to improve the current research tools for designing and maintaining bridge foundations to resist the effects of scour.
Additionally, in order to minimise future flood damages to the bridges requires that proper attention be devoted to developing and implementing improved procedures for designing and inspecting bridges for scour.
Dr Khan conducted the research in two major parts first, experimental analysis of pier scouring for the piers of two different bridges in Pakistan and one bridge in Malaysia second, development of AI-Based Inductive Modeling Techniques for Bridge Pier scour depth prediction.