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Flow Through Culverts

Culverts are conduits that convey stormwater through embankments. They have three parts: an intake, barrel, and diffuser. Flow through culverts can be inlet-controlled or outlet-controlled depending on upstream and downstream conditions. Inlet-controlled flow depends on inlet geometry, while outlet-controlled flow depends on barrel characteristics, slope, and tailwater depth. Flow equations are used to calculate the discharge based on these parameters and culvert dimensions.

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63 views5 pages

Flow Through Culverts

Culverts are conduits that convey stormwater through embankments. They have three parts: an intake, barrel, and diffuser. Flow through culverts can be inlet-controlled or outlet-controlled depending on upstream and downstream conditions. Inlet-controlled flow depends on inlet geometry, while outlet-controlled flow depends on barrel characteristics, slope, and tailwater depth. Flow equations are used to calculate the discharge based on these parameters and culvert dimensions.

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mahesh
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Lecture 2

Flow through culverts


Culverts
Culverts are the conduits, which convey storm water through highway and railways
embankments.
A culvert consists of three parts: the intake (also called inlet or fan), the barrel (or throat)
and the diffuser (also called outlet or expansion fan). Commonly used shapes are circular,
rectangular, elliptical, shapes including arch and pipe arch culverts are used.

Plan
Fig.5.2 A Typical Box culvert (Akan, 2006)

The bottom of the barrel is called the invert while the barrel roof is called the soffit or
obvert. The training walls of the inlet and outlet are called wing walls.
Culverts are mostly designed to operate as a open channel with the critical flow occurring
in the barrel in order to maximize the discharge per unit width thus minimizing the cross
section of the barrel.
In culverts, the characteristics of the flow are very complicated as the flow is controlled
by many variables, including the inlet geometry, slope, size, roughness, approach and tail
water conditions etc.
Inlet configuration plays a vital role in the performance of culverts. Inlet configuration
can be either projected barrel, cast in place concrete headwall and wing wall, precast end
section etc.
Culvert can flow either full or partially full depending upon upstream and downstream
conditions. Flow can either be sub critical or supercritical and flow conditions can change
with time in a culvert.
Flow in a culvert is either inlet (upstream) controlled or outlet (downstream) controlled.
Inlet control occurs when the culvert barrel capacity is higher than inlet will accept it.

Inlet control culverts


In

the inlet control, the flow primarily depends on initial conditions such as area, shape
and configuration of the inlet. Flow under such condition is supercritical and does not
depend on tail water level.
The hydraulic behaviour of inlet is similar to that of a weir if the inlet is not submerged
and if submerged the behaviour is similar to an orifice.
Fig 5.3 Types of inlet controlled flow in a culvert (after Normann et al. 1985)
According to FHWA (Normann et al., 1985) the inlet will be considered un submerged if
0.62 0.5 0.5
AD g
Q
Where Q is discharge, A is the cross-sectional area of the culvert. D is interior height of
the culvert and g is gravitational acceleration.
Two forms of equation are commonly used for unsubmerged inlets (Akan, 2006; Page 214217). The form I equation for un submerged inlet is
kS
AD g

Q
K
gD
V
D
y
D
H
s
M
I
ucc
I

0.5 0.5
2

2
Where u H is headwater depth above the upstream invert of the culvert, c y is the critical depth,
c V is the velocity at the critical depth, s k is 0.70 for metered inlets and is -0.5 for non metered
inlets, S is the culvert barrel slope, and I K , I M are empirical constants.
The form II for un submerged inlet is
MII
II
u

AD g
Q
K
D
H

0.5 0.5
II K , II M are empirical constants.
The inlet will be considered submerged if
0.70 0.5 0.5
AD g
Q
The flow equation for submerged inlets is
YkS
AD g
Q
c
D

H
s
u

2
0.5 0.5

S is the slope, c and Y are empirical constants and s k is 0.70 for metered inlets and is -0.5
for non metered inlets

Outlet controlled culverts

In the outlet control, the culvert can either flow full or partially full condition. When the
culvert is partially full, the flow will be subcritical. The flow capacity depends upon the
culvert area, shape, length, bottom slope, head losses in the culvert, and the headwater
and tail water levels.
Fig 5.4 Types of outlet controlled flow in a culvert (after Normann et al. 1985)
The energy equation for a culvert flowing full is written as
2
2
24/3
2

2
2
1
gA
Q
kR
gn L
H H SL k
n
eDu

Where D H is tail water depth measured from the downstream invert of the culvert; S is
the culvert slope; L is the culvert length, g is the gravitational acceleration, n is Manning's
roughness factor; R is the hydraulic radius; A is the cross sectional area, k m s n 1.0 1/ 3 /
and e k is the entrance loss coefficient.
Flow is most likely to be governed by outlet control if the culvert slope is mild, for mild
slopes, full flow will occur if H D D otherwise flow will be partly full. The flow will
be mostly inlet control if the culvert slope is steep.
Example 5.2:- A discharge of 2.5 cumec flows through a RCC rectangular box culvert
having D=1.0m, b=1.0m, L=50m, n=0.013, and S=0.002. Outlet of the culvert is
submerged with the tail water head of 1.6m. Determine the headwater depth. Take e k

=0.5
For the box culvert the area and hydraulic radius is given by
A B D 11 1m2
m
BD
BD
R 0.25
22

2
2
24/3
2

2
2
1
gA
Q
kR
gn L
H H SL k
n
eDu

2
2
24/3
2

2 9.81 1
2.5

0.50 0.25
2 9.81 0.013 50
1.60 0.002 50 1 0.50 u H 3.32m

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