Culvert

box culvert Culverts can be constructed of a variety of materials including cast-in-place or precast concrete (reinforced or non-reinforced), galvanized steel, aluminum, or plastic (typically high-density polyethylene). Two or more materials may be combined to form composite structures. For example, open-bottom corrugated steel structures are often built on concrete footings. ==Design and engineering==

river levee and a street in Warsaw Construction or installation at a culvert site generally results in disturbance of the site's soil, stream banks, or stream bed, and can result in the occurrence of unwanted problems such as scour holes or slumping of banks adjacent to the culvert structure. Culverts must be properly sized and installed, and protected from erosion and scour. Many US agencies such as the Federal Highway Administration, Bureau of Land Management, and Environmental Protection Agency, as well as state or local authorities, require that culverts be designed and engineered to meet specific federal, state, or local regulations and guidelines to ensure proper function and to protect against culvert failures. Culverts are classified by standards for their load capacities, water flow capacities, life spans, and installation requirements for bedding and backfill. Most agencies adhere to these standards when designing, engineering, and specifying culverts. ==Failures==

Culvert failures can occur for a wide variety of reasons including maintenance, environmental, and installation-related failures, functional or process failures related to capacity and volume causing the erosion of the soil around or under them, and structural or material failures that cause culverts to fail due to collapse or corrosion of the materials from which they are made. If the failure is sudden and catastrophic, it can result in injury or loss of life. Sudden road collapses are often the result of poorly designed and engineered culvert crossing sites or unexpected changes in the surrounding environment cause design parameters to be exceeded. Water passing through undersized culverts will scour away the surrounding soil over time. This can cause a sudden failure during medium-sized rain events. Accidents from culvert failure can also occur if a culvert has not been adequately sized and a flood event overwhelms the culvert, or disrupts the road or railway above it. Ongoing culvert function without failure depends on proper design and engineering considerations being given to load, hydraulic flow, surrounding soil analysis, backfill and bedding compaction, and erosion protection. Improperly designed backfill support around culverts can result in material collapse or failure from inadequate load support. ==Environmental impacts==

Safe and stable stream crossings can accommodate wildlife and protect stream health, while reducing expensive erosion and structural damage. Undersized and poorly placed culverts can cause problems for water quality and aquatic organisms. Poorly designed culverts can degrade water quality via scour and erosion, as well as restrict the movement of aquatic organisms between upstream and downstream habitat. Fish are a common victim in the loss of habitat due to poorly designed crossing structures. Culverts that offer adequate aquatic organism passage reduce impediments to movement of fish, wildlife, and other aquatic life that require instream passage. Poorly designed culverts are also more apt to become jammed with sediment and debris during medium to large scale rain events. If the culvert cannot pass the water volume in the stream, then the water may overflow the road embankment. This may cause significant erosion, ultimately washing out the culvert. The embankment material that is washed away can clog other structures downstream, causing them to fail as well. It can also damage crops and property. A properly sized structure and hard bank armoring can help to alleviate this pressure. Culvert style replacement is a widespread practice in stream restoration. Long-term benefits of this practice include reduced risk of catastrophic failure and improved fish passage. If best management practices are followed, short-term impacts on the aquatic biology are minimal. Fish passage While the culvert discharge capacity derives from hydrological and hydraulic engineering considerations, this results often in large velocities in the barrel, creating a possible fish passage barrier. Critical culvert parameters in terms of fish passage are the dimensions of the barrel, particularly its length, cross-sectional shape, and invert slope. The behavioural response by fish species to culvert dimensions, light conditions, and flow turbulence may play a role in their swimming ability and culvert passage rate. There is no simple technical means to ascertain the turbulence characteristics most relevant to fish passage in culverts, but it is understood that the flow turbulence plays a key role in fish behaviour. The interactions between swimming fish and vortical structures involve a broad range of relevant length and time scales. Recent discussions emphasised the role of secondary flow motion, considerations of fish dimensions in relation to the spectrum of turbulence scales, and the beneficial role of turbulent structures provided that fish are able to exploit them. The current literature on culvert fish passage focuses mostly on fast-swimming fish species, but a few studies have argued for better guidelines for small-bodied fish including juveniles. ==Minimum energy loss culverts==

In the coastal plains of Queensland, Australia, torrential rains during the wet season place a heavy demand on culverts. The natural slope of the flood plains is often very small, and little fall (or head loss) is permissible in the culverts. Researchers developed and patented the design procedure of minimum energy loss culverts which yield small afflux. A minimum energy loss culvert or waterway is a structure designed with the concept of minimum head loss. The flow in the approach channel is contracted through a streamlined inlet into the barrel where the channel width is minimum, and then it is expanded in a streamlined outlet before being finally released into the downstream natural channel. Both the inlet and the outlet must be streamlined to avoid significant form losses. The barrel invert is often lowered to increase the discharge capacity. The concept of minimum energy loss culverts was developed by a shire engineer in Victoria and a professor at the University of Queensland during the late 1960s. While a number of small-size structures were designed and built in Victoria, some major structures were designed, tested and built in south-east Queensland. ==See also==