The paper presents a design method to determine the maximum equilibrium scour depth at piers embedded in a sand-bed overlain by a thin armor-layer of gravels using the experimental data of Dey and Raikar and those of Ettema. The proposed equation is in terms of empirical relationships, termed K-factors, which account for the effects of flow depth, pier shape, flow intensity, bed sediment size and armor gravel size on scour depth for individual cases of scour holes as identified by Dey and Raikar. These K-factors are determined by fitting envelope curves to the experimental data. The estimated largest possible scour depths that can occur at circular and square piers with an armor-layer are 3.15 and 3.47 times the pier width, respectively. © 2009 Korean Society of Civil Engineers and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg GmbH.