You are on page 1of 13

Abstract

A culvert is a (small) bridges structure of less than 6 meter span between faces of abutment and does generally have two spans. A culvert must be large enough to carry the flow without any heading up at the entrance. To provide for this, culverts should be assumed as flowing only half full when the approach channel is wide and shallow; if the banks are steep and the channel is narrow 3/4 th full flow may be taken. For arched type as lying half-way between the springing and the crown. But on the other hand it is not economical to make a culvert unnecessarily high with extra approach embankments high abutments,

headwalls and walls, for retaining deep over-fills. The depth of a culvert should be small, and it does not matter much if the opening stops appreciably below the formation level of the road and the inlet is sometimes submerged; instead the length should be increased suitably so that the road embankment, with its natural side slopes is accommodated without high retaining

headwalls. The Heading up of the water at the inlet should not go higher up than predetermined safe level, nor overtop the road embankment. The fixing of this level is the first step in the design. Where the masonry abutments supporting arches or slabs are designed for culverts functioning under "head", bed pavements must be provided. And, in all cases, including pipe and box culverts, adequate provision must be the exit against erosion by providing curtain walls. To get the best advantage of the capacity of a culvert the shape of the entrance should be such as to cause the least amount of restriction to the free flow of the water. This can be achieved in the case of face walled culverts by means of pitched aprons at both ends and pitched trained banks with outwards curved chords which make an angle of 70 with the face wall. Slight chamfering or bell-mouthing at the inlet ends of pipes or barrels will increase their capacity of discharge. Further increase in the rate of flow is

obtained in pipe culverts by fixing the invert somewhat below the natural bed levels of the stream.

INDEX

y Title Page y Certificate y Acknowledgement y Abstract y Introduction

y Aims y Methods y Results y Discussion y Conclusion y Reference & Bibliography

INTRODUCTION

Introduction
The reclamation of roads has been identified on many National Forests as a primary means to protect and restore water quality, fisheries and wildlife habitat security. Nationally, the Forest Service has an $8.4

billion backlog in maintaining its roads, bridges and culverts. Because it receives less that 20% of the funding necessary to maintain its 386,000 miles of inventoried roads, this backlog grows each year. An estimated 60,000 miles of additional, uninventoried roads exist nation-wide. Lack of road maintenance can result in elevated sediment delivery to streams as compared to existing baseline levels, primarily from high levels of sediment delivery due to culvert failures, fill slope failures, ditch failures, and surface erosion.

With this shift in road management emphasis, road maintenance funds earmarked specifically for road reclamation (also known as obliteration or

decommissioning) have been allocated to individual National Forests for the first time. Function to convey or transport storm runoff (or other discharge) from one side of the roadway to the other either culvert or bridge.

Bridges - structures which have at least 20 feet of length along the roadway centerline (National Bridge

Inspection Standards, NBIS). Culverts - all other structures y Even though the costs of culverts are less than those of bridges, there are many times more culverts than bridges, and the total investment of public funds for culverts constitutes a substantial share of highway dollars. y Culverts are usually designed to operate with the inlet submerged if conditions permit. This allows for a hydraulic advantage by increased discharge capacity. Bridges are usually designed for nonsubmergence during the design flood event, and often incorporate some freeboard. y Culvert maintenance requirements include efforts to assure clear and open conduits, protection against corrosion and abrasion, repair and

protection against local and general scour, and structural distress repair.

Design of Road Culverts serves as guide for property owners and engineers who are designing permanent road-crossing culverts to facilitate upstream fish migration. It provides guidance for projects involving new culvert construction as well as retrofitting or replacing existing culverts. The designer will need to have a working knowledge of hydraulic engineering, hydrology and soils/structural engineering to

accomplish an appropriate design. Design of Road Culverts for Fish Passage lays out the consecutive design steps most likely to be required in a culvert project. The very presence of a culvert has an impact on stream habitat, even when fish are able to migrate through it successfully. These impacts are often associated with the culvert itself, but they can also be associated with the channel modifications necessary to install or retrofit a culvert intended to facilitate fish passage. Upstream and downstream hydraulic effects of the culvert can have an impact as well.

Because the impact to stream habitat can be significant, the best option for roadway design is to avoid or minimize the number of stream crossings needed. However, this is not always feasible, so other options must be considered that will allow the stream to cross the road. Once the culvert option has been selected, a number of concerns must be taken into account as design begins. These concerns may dictate the sitting, sizing and design of culverts and/or fish passage improvements:

Direct habitat loss, Water quality, Upstream and downstream channel impacts, Ecological connectivity, channel maintenance, Construction impacts, and Risk of culvert failure. Culvert installations require some magnitude of construction activity within the stream channel, and the culvert itself replaces native streambed material and diversity with the culvert structure. Each species of salmon and trout require specific spawning conditions related to the water velocity, depth, substrate size, gradient, accessibility and space. All salmonids require cool, clean water in which to spawn. Most salmonid spawning occurs in pool tail outs and runs. Spawning habitat can be lost or degraded by culvert installations in the following ways:

Culvert placement in a spawning area replaces the natural gravel used for spawning with a pipe. This is a direct loss of spawning habitat. Culvert construction can require significant channel realignment, eliminating natural meanders, bends, spawning riffles and other diversity in the channel that serve as valuable habitat. Culverts shorten channels, leading to increased velocities and bed instability that reduce spawning opportunities and decrease Egg survival Riffles and gravel bars immediately downstream of the culvert can be scoured if flow velocity is increased through the culvert. Gravel mobilization while eggs are incubating in reds (nests) results in high egg mortality. Any release of sediment into the stream may smother spawning gravel with silt. In the case of culverts, sediment releases may be due to construction or due to a change in hydraulics caused by changes to the alignment, sitting or design of the culvert. Such damage

can be avoided or at least minimized by correctly designing and implementing an effective Erosion- and sediment-control plan and by timing the project to avoid critical stages in salmonid life cycles, in stream work windows vary among fish species and streams.

You might also like