Numerical Investigation of the Structural Behavior of Corrugated Steel Culverts under Surface Load Tests Using Three-Dimensional Finite-Element Analyses
Publication: Journal of Pipeline Systems Engineering and Practice
Volume 14, Issue 2
Abstract
Corrugated steel pipe (CSP) culverts have been widely used for decades; however, their structural behavior under surface loading may not be correctly captured by design codes based on results from recent experimental studies. To address this, the data from nine full-scale experiments investigating the structural behavior of corrugated steel culverts with different burial depths and surface loading configurations, instrumented with distributed fiber optic strain sensors, were compared with three-dimensional finite-element analyses. Parametric studies were undertaken that included different models for the corrugation properties (i.e., explicit modeling of the corrugated geometry and orthotropic, and isotropic shell), contact between soil and pipes, and the soil properties (soil moduli and elastic and elastoplastic behavior). It was found that the orthotropic model was a good substitute for explicit modeling of the corrugated geometry, which saves computation time and still provides an accurate estimation of the thrusts and moments. The moments in the culvert were found to be sensitive to the distribution of soil moduli, whereas thrusts were not. Based on this investigation, three-dimensional analyses using orthotropic shell models, elastic soil properties with moduli varying with depth, and tie constraints between the soil and the culvert are recommended for future investigations of corrugated steel pipe responses to surface loads.
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Data Availability Statement
Some or all data, models, or code that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to acknowledge the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI), and the Government of Ontario for their support of this research. The authors also thank Bryan Simpson, Caleb Regier, and Oliver Kearns for providing their high-quality experimental data. Finally, Graeme Boyd, Brian Westervelt, and Joshua Coghlan deserve recognition for their technical support of the testing setup, instrumentation, and data acquisition for those experimental projects.
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Published In
Journal of Pipeline Systems Engineering and Practice
Volume 14 • Issue 2 • May 2023
Copyright
© 2023 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Jul 15, 2022
Accepted: Nov 11, 2022
Published online: Jan 5, 2023
Published in print: May 1, 2023
Discussion open until: Jun 5, 2023
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