Experimental Study and Numerical Simulation on Concrete Box Culverts in Trenches
Publication: Journal of Performance of Constructed Facilities
Volume 24, Issue 3
Abstract
Concrete culverts in trenches have been widely used in expressways. Problems frequently take place because of improperly estimated vertical earth pressures on culverts. Different codes have been used in China to estimate the design load on culverts. In this study, a full-scale experiment and FEM simulation were conducted to evaluate the variation of vertical earth pressures and soil arching in backfill and to examine the accuracy of the methods recommended by different design codes including the prevailing Chinese General Code for Design of Highway Bridges and Culverts based on the linear earth pressure theory. The measured vertical earth pressures from the experiment were compared with those from the current theoretical methods. The variations of foundation pressure and settlement were also analyzed. The FEM simulation investigated the key influencing factors on the vertical earth pressures including the height of the embankment fill, the width of the trench, the slope angle of the trench, the dimensions of the culvert, the properties of the backfill, and the elastic modulus of the foundation soil. This research reveals that soil arch formed when the backfill on the culvert reached a certain height, but it was unstable. The coefficient of the vertical earth pressure on the top of the culvert was significantly different from that recommended by the Chinese General Code for Design of Highway Bridges and Culverts.
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Acknowledgments
This work was supported by the Program for New Century Excellent Talents, MOE, People’s Republic of China (Grant No. UNSPECIFIEDNCET-06-0649) and the Key Plan of Science and Technology Development of Hubei Provincial Communications Department, People’s Republic of China (Grant No. UNSPECIFIED2005-361) the Special Fund for Basic Scientific Research of Central Colleges, China University of Geosciences (Wuhan) (Grant No. CUGL090212). The writers would like to express their appreciation for the financial assistance.
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Published In
Journal of Performance of Constructed Facilities
Volume 24 • Issue 3 • June 2010
Pages: 223 - 234
Copyright
© 2010 ASCE.
History
Received: Aug 30, 2008
Accepted: Oct 23, 2009
Published online: Oct 27, 2009
Published in print: Jun 2010
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