01697975

Component

A metal arch culvert has been instrumented with optical fibres and tested under static and dynamic vehicle loads. The axis of the 2.75 m span semi-circular culvert was skewed at 45 degrees from the centreline of the roadway overhead. Distributed strain profiles around the circumference were successfully captured by the static and dynamic optical fibre systems. Calculated distributions of live load thrust showed that peak thrusts were obtained near the crown. The high magnitudes of moment compared to thrust suggest that for this shallow buried culvert, bending moments are likely as important as thrust forces and it would be preferable if they were not routinely neglected in the design standards. Dynamic testing led to thrusts and moments under the front wheels of the test truck that were from 1.07 to 1.85 times larger than those from the rear wheels. Measurements became noisier and more data were lost with increase in speed. The pavement led to a 10% decrease in thrusts in the static tests, but this influence became small as the speed increased, until velocity of 30 km/h. While the pavement had little influence on thrusts, it had a large impact on bending moments. In both static and dynamic tests, bending moments for wheels on the road pavement reduced by approximately 30%. Thrust and moment envelopes were prepared, to provided peak (most positive and least negative) values around the circumference. Envelope plots demonstrated that many locations near the crown experienced thrusts higher than those at the springlines. The development of the culvert response envelopes was greatly facilitated by the use of optic fibres (many strain gauges would be required to obtain this kind of data).

This paper was sponsored by TRB committee AFF70 Standing Committee on Culverts and Hydraulic Structures.

19-05130

English

6p

2019

Transportation Research Board 98th Annual Meeting

Digital/other

Figures; References

Corrugated metal culverts; Dynamic tests; Optical fibers; Steel pipe

Highways; Pipelines

Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting 2019 Paper #19-05130

TRIS, TRB, ATRI

Dec 7 2018 9:43AM