Chapter IV

• Highway Drainage [4 hours]

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Cross Drainage Structure
- provided whenever streams have to cross the roadway
- Types: causeway, culverts, Bridge, Aqueduct, inverted siphon

1.Causeway
• During flood, the water
flows over the road and traffic
on both direction is stopped
• Total period of interruption
to traffic has however to be
kept as low as possible, not
exceeding about 15 days/year.

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2.Culvert:
– close conduit placed under
embankment to carry water across the
roadway.
– As per Nepal Bridge Standard 2067, the
drainage structures having span length
up to 6 meters is called culvert.
– span is greater than 6 meters then it is
bridge.
– common types of culvert are slab
culvert, box culvert, arch culvert and
pipe culvert.
– Choice of culvert on particular site
depends upon cost of construction and
availability of materials and labors.

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a. Slab culvert,
– RCC slab is placed over abutments made of
masonry
– span is limited to 3 meters. Slab culvert
– Used where water opening < 15m2 and road
crosses the waterway relatively at height
– min free board required = 0.5m

b. Box Culvert
- square or rectangular shape made of RCC.
- constructed where soil nature below
foundation is not suitable for individual footing
- greater resistance to damage due to debris,
greater hydraulic efficiency and life span
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 c. Arch culvert
- built using bricks and stone masonry
and used when depth of embankment is
high.
- Span is kept less than 3m

d. Pipe culvert
-For low discharge and alignment
has high embankment
-Min dia -> 60 cm
-Jointed by collar or tongue and
groove
-At least 50 cm cover of soil

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3. Aqueduct:
• An aqueduct is a open or closed conduit, depending upon
nature of water, sufficiently above the roadway provided to
drain water across road.
• The normal position of placing of aqueduct in roadway is
cutting.
If a road is in cutting exceeding 5 meters and the water either of
natural drainage course or irrigation canal has to be drained or
taken to irrigate the land, aqueduct is best.

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4. Inverted Siphon:
• A pressure pipeline
crossing a depression
or passing under
highway is called
inverted siphon.

5. Scupper:
• It is the cheapest type of culvert,
used to decrease per km cost of
road in low cost pavement. It is of
0.9 to1.0 meter wide.

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6. Bridge -> structure constructed over water course to carry traffic over it
• Clear Span > 6m
• Classification based on:
a) Construction material
- Steel - concrete - Timber
b) Structural point of view
- Cantilever - Suspension - Suspended - Cable stay, etc.
c) Span length
- Minor Bridge (to 30m) -Major Bridge (> 30m) -long Bridge (>120m)
d) Load carrying capacity
- Class 70 (corresponding to class AA loading)
- Class 40 (corresponding to class A loading)
- Class 30 (corresponding to class B loading)
- Class 9, class 3, class 1

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Parts of Bridge
• Structurally bridge may be divided into following major parts:
a) Foundation
b) Sub structure -> portion of bridge between the decking and foundation
e.g. abutment, piers, wing wall ,etc
c) Super structure -> portion of bridge above decking
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 Erosion control
• Water emerging out of culverts and other cross drainage
structures will have higher velocity than non-scouring
velocity for the soil around it.
• Also the construction of highway bring damage in natural
stream bed, existing stable hill slopes and involves the
removal of top vegetation covers.
• So erosion control measures have to be adopted.
• The erosion depends upon several factors such as
intensity and duration of rainfall, type and condition of soil,
height and angle of slope and climatic condition.

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• Some of the erosion control measures are:
a) Lining of drains
• If the mean velocity exceeds the permissible velocity for
particular type of soil, the road drain should be protected
against scouring.
• The slope of drain is lined with turf and bottom is
covered by cobbles and gravels of desired size. Grass
lining are valuable where grass can be supported.
• For higher velocity type of lining should be stone
masonry or brick masonry throughout the perimeter
and length of drain.
Pre-cast concrete blocks can be used if local stone materials
are not available.

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b) Vegetation
• process of application of grass on top
surface of exposed soil.
• Soil erosion control is improved by
allowing vegetation to grow in fill slope
or shoulder portion.
• Bio-Engineering is other alternative
which has proved
more effective with sustainable
development of age.

c) Stone pitching, lining and protection

works:
• Due to various reasons slope of cut
and fill should be provided higher than
angle of repose of soil.
• In such cases various types of slope
protection works are provided.
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 Energy Dissipating Structures

• Due to higher kinetic energy of water, it

causes erosion of soil.
• So the use of energy dissipating structures is
to dissipate the energy of flowing water
before letting out on the natural bed so that
velocity at that point will be less than eroding
velocity.

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Some of the important Energy Dissipating Structures are:
a) Road Rapid:
• Road channels having bed slopes generally higher than the critical
slope are rapids. It is provided at the end of the catch drain.
b) Ditch Check:
• In case of large rapid slope, the flowing water has high energy
having capacity to erode the bed and side slope of drain.
• The energy of flowing water can be reduced by providing falls at
certain interval. This type of structure is called ditch checks.
c) Fall or Drop structure:
• In the design of road drainage system in hill road, it is often
necessary to provide drop structures.
• Such structures are provided frequently in hill roads where the
bed slope of existing drainage is high.

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 Some of the drop structures are shown below:
(a) Drop structure (b) With stilling basin

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 Subsurface drainage
• Stability and strength of road surface depends upon
strength of sub-grade which is the foundation layer of road
whose strength depends upon its moisture content.
• Variations of moisture content of sub-grade are caused by:
– Penetration of moisture through the pavement surface.
– Percolation of water from shoulder, pavement edges and
formation slopes.
– Rise or fall of underground water table.
– Capillary rise of moisture in soil.
– Transfer of moisture vapour through soil

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• Control of subsoil water
• Sub-surface drainage is the preventive measure to
control excessive moisture in sub-grade soil and various
pavements
layers .
• By the provision of sub-surface drainage, only
gravitational water can be drained off and vapor water,
capillary water cannot be drained off by this system
Method
1. Lowering water table
2. Control of seepage
3. Control of capillary rise

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1. Lowering water table
• If the ground water table is more than 1.5 meter below the
sub-grade of road, it does not require any sub-surface
drainage.
In the places where the water table is high, the best remedy is
to take the formation of embankment of height not less than
1.2 m.

• For relatively permeable, provide longitudinal drainage

trenches with drain pipes and filter sand

• For relatively less permeable, provide longitudinal drainage

along with transverse drains
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For permeable soil

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For Impermeable soil

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2. Control of seepage
• When surface of ground and the impervious layer embedded
below it are sloping towards the road, the seepage is likely to
occur and reach road sub-grade to effect its strength
characteristics.
• Seepage is likely to occur in hilly region or roads in cutting. If
the seepage level reaches the road sub- grade, it should be
intercepted to keep the seepage line at safe depth below the
road sub-grade as shown in figure;

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3. Control of capillary rise
• Capillary rise is the process of rising water in on
sub-grade level or above which depends upon the
permeability of soil (high for fine grained soil).
• If capillary rising is likely to harm the strength of
sub-grade, steps should be taken to arrest the
capillary rise of water which is called cutoff.

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Capillary cutoffs can be of following two types:
a) Provision of granular layer of suitable thickness or of
sand blanket.
• During construction of embankment it is provided
between subgrade and highest level of Ground Water
Table.
• Thickness of this granular layer should be such that
capillary rise of water remains within this layer

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 b) Provision of Impermeable Layer of Bituminous layer
• Here bituminous material is insert to arrest the
capillary rise. 50% of straight run bitumen of 80/100
grade and 50% of diesel oil at the rate of 1 kg/m2 is
used for this layer.
• Heavy duty Tar felt, polythene envelop sheet and
other measures can be adopted.

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Design of Sub-surface drain
• The size and spacing of sub-surface drain depends on
amount of seepage water they have to handle.
• These drains are surrounded by suitable type of filter
material.
• For design of sub-surface drainage system, following steps
are followed.
• Determine the depth of the trench.
• Select back fill material for trench.
• Determine perforation in pipe.(Size and number)
• Maximum size of circular holes = D85 (filter)
• Max. width of slotted holes = 0.83D85 (filler)
• Determine the diameter of pipe.
(Use 150 – 200 mm dia perforated pipe) as per NRS 2070

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 • The filter material used should have sufficient
permeability offering negligible resistance to flow.
• It should also resist piping of the foundation material.
• Hence the grain size distribution of the filter material
is decided based on criteria of permeability and
piping.
• To fulfill the permeability conditions lower limit of
D15 size of material is determined from relation;
Let 6cm Let 1cm
(D15 of filler material / D15 of foundation material) > 5
• to prevent piping, the upper limit of D15 size of filter
material can be calculated from following relation;
Let 9cm Let 2cm
D15 of filler / D85 of foundation < 5
D15 -> effective particle size it means that 15 percent of the particles are finer and 85
percent of the particles are coarser than that particular particle size D15
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