Steel Culvert Investigation from Field Testing to Design Equations

This paper summarizes a recently completed investigation of corrugated steel structures. The project commenced with field testing of two corrugated steel arch culverts in the city of Kingston, Canada, using optical fibers to provide detailed measurements to permit assessment of thrust and moment distributions under static and dynamic truck loading. The detailed responses provided new understanding of the structural behavior, including the critical nature of the front axle of the truck, when normal practice would focus on the tandem axles at the rear of the truck. The study also permitted assessment of the impacts of vehicle speed and the asphalt pavement. Next, improved orthotropic properties were developed considering the arc and tangent geometries of four common corrugation plate sizes, revealing the shortcomings of traditional sinusoidal approximations. Finite element modeling was then used to undertake an extensive parametric investigation to develop new design equations providing improved moment and thrust estimates for single and tandem axle load patterns, at a range of burial depths and corrugation geometries. The paper provides a summary of this research as well as provides insights gained from the investigation.