Soil-Steel Interaction of Long-Span Box Culverts—Performance during Backfilling
Publication: Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering
Volume 136, Issue 6
Abstract
The paper presents the performance of four long-span deep-corrugated steel box culverts with spans of 8- and 14-m during backfilling, as well as comparisons with finite-element modeling and design codes. Two of the culverts were stiffened at the crown arch. The test results show that the stiffening applied on the culverts is quite effective. The crown rises of the respective stiffened culverts were found to be half those of the not-stiffened culverts. The influence of the structure geometry on the soil-passive earth pressure was confirmed, as well as the sensitivity of box culverts to soil loads with increasing spans. The results showed that the influence of the size and shape of the box culverts on the amount of thrusts must be better implemented in the design method. The finite-element analysis results were conservative when live loading was concerned but the crown displacements and thrust during backfilling were underestimated.
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Acknowledgments
ViaCon AB is gratefully acknowledged for financing the tests and for making some of the original drawings available to be modified by the writer, namely, Figs. 1, 2, and 6. Fruitful discussions with Professor Håkan Sundquist and his comments were also very much appreciated.
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Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering
Volume 136 • Issue 6 • June 2010
Pages: 823 - 832
Copyright
© 2010 ASCE.
History
Received: Oct 10, 2008
Accepted: Nov 18, 2009
Published online: Nov 19, 2009
Published in print: Jun 2010
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