Structural design of flexible culverts development trends

Structural design requirements for flexible culverts are available in several international bridge design codes. Examples are the Canadian (CHBDC), the American (AASHTO) and the Swedish (TRVK Bro ll2). The designation “flexible culvert” may today be somewhat misleading. The word culvert is usually associated with small pipes in road embankments. However, over the years flexible culverts have grown bigger and a more proper designation would be bridges. Therefore, these structures are often also referred to as Soil-Steel Composite Bridges or just Soil-Steel Bridges. With this development also new and more stringent requirements on the structural design follows. In this paper key aspects of a holistic design approach based on the authors experience on the essentials of flexible culvert structural design3 are outlined and is compared to the current design approaches in the CHBDC and the TRVK Bro 11. However, this paper will provide insight into how the holistic design topics are addressed in current design codes and future research and development.

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Opracowanie ze środków MNiSW w ramach umowy 812/P-DUN/2016 na działalność upowszechniającą naukę (zadania 2017).