Recent research on flexible culverts in sloping terrain
2017
scientific article
english
- sloping terrain
- flexible culvert
- soil‒steel composite bridge
- finite element method
- snowshed
- avalanche load
EN The performance of buried flexible steel structures is directly influenced by the quality of the backfill soil and its configuration around the conduit. The economical choice of these structures stimulates practitioners to expand their different applications including their performance in sloping environment. The presence of steep surface slopes induces unbalanced loading and asymmetrical soil support around the conduit. This paper outlines the latest research efforts on how a flexible culvert would perform in sloping terrain environment. The paper focuses primarily on the structural behaviour of soil loading effects. The investigation highlights the use of numerical simulation in predicting the performance of a case study of flexible culvert under different construction schemes, where the influence of slope intensity and depth of soil cover are briefly presented. Soil slope stability as a major concern is also discussed. The research outcome clearly underlines the importance of soil configuration around steel culverts. The asymmetrical response of the conduit is predictably observed from the results and greatly influenced by the presence of shallow depth of soil covers. Sectional forces tend to increase with the increase of surface slopes. The results also underline the necessity of soil stability investigation when constructing flexible culverts in sloping terrain.
293 - 299
CC BY-SA (attribution - share alike)
public
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