Design Culvert

The Culvert command lets you model the behaviour of a culvert under various conditions of flow.

Because of the many variables involved, the process is largely one of trial and error and MIDUSS does not suggest initial feasible values for the design.

Culvert design can be carried out for either steady, (i.e. time invariant) flow or for an inflow hydrograph. When inflow is in the form of a hydrograph the hydraulic design can be followed by a routing process that shows the attenuation of the inflow hydrograph caused by ponding that occurs upstream of the embankment. In such cases the peak outflow from the barrel will be less than the peak inflow and you can refine the barrel design for the reduced flow if desired.

Your Culvert design can be preceded by a Channel design with either a trapezoidal or complex cross-section. When this is done the cross-sectional shape of the channel is ‘inherited’ by the culvert design and used to describe the flow cross-section upstream of the culvert. If the inflow is a flow hydrograph, a channel design may be followed by a Channel routing process from which the channel outflow forms the inflow to the culvert.

The culvert is assumed to be located below a sag point in a highway embankment that will form an overflow weir in the event that the barrel flow capacity is sufficiently surcharged. Flow separation between barrel and weir flow is assumed to be recombined downstream of the barrel. The cross-section of the barrel conduit may be a circular pipe, a rectangular box, a horizontal or vertical ellipse or a pipe arch. Multiple barrels may be used but cross-section and other hydraulic parameters are assumed to be the same for all barrels.

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