How full-height sidewall baffles affect box culvert capacity: balancing fish passage and discharge requirements

ABSTRACT

Low-level river crossings and culverts deliver valuable transportation and hydraulic control services to the society, but have negative impacts in terms of upstream fish passage. Recently, full-height sidewall baffles have been imposed in north-eastern Australia to assist upstream passage of small-bodied fish in box culverts, although the impact on the culvert discharge capacity was ignored. Detailed physical modelling was conducted under controlled flow conditions in a near-full-scale culvert barrel channel, equipped with such full-height sidewall baffles. The results provide a quantitative assessment of the impact of full-height sidewall baffles on the discharge capacity of box culverts. Applications were developed for single- and multi-cell box culverts, and practical implications are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Box culverts
• sidewall baffles
• upstream fish passage
• discharge capacity
• low-velocity zone
• maintenance

Acknowledgments

The authors thank Dr Carlos GONZALEZ (Queensland Department of Transport and Main Roads), Brady ZIETH (Bechtel Australia) and Dr Hang WANG (Sichuan University) for valuable comments. They acknowledge helpful discussion with Chris RUSSELL, Dr Carlos GONZALEZ, Louise DUTTON and Urs BAEUMER (Queensland Department of Transport and Main Roads). The authors acknowledge the technical assistance of Jason VAN DER GEVEL and Stewart MATTHEWS (The University of Queensland). The financial support through the Queensland Department of Transport and Main Roads (TMTHF1805) is acknowledged.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Queensland Department of Transport and Main Roads [TMTHF1805].

Notes on contributors

Xinqian Leng

Dr. Xinqian (Sophia) Leng’s research interests include physical and numerical (CFD) modelling of unsteady turbulent flows e.g. breaking waves, bores and positive surges, field investigations of tidal bores, and hydraulic design of fish-friendly culverts. She has authored/co-authored over 30 peer-reviewed publications, including over 20 international journal papers. Dr. Leng is the recipient of the 2018 Institution of Civil Engineers (UK) Baker Medal, 2019 IdEx Post-doctoral Fellowship awarded by Université de Bordeaux (France) and is currently working at Lab I2M, TREFLE (Site ENSCBP), Université de Bordeaux.

Hubert Chanson

Hubert Chanson is Professor of Civil Engineering at the University of Queensland, where he has been since 1990, having previously enjoyed an industrial career for six years. His main field of expertise is environmental fluid mechanics and hydraulic engineering, both in terms of theoretical fundamentals, physical and numerical modelling. He leads a group of 5-10 researchers, largely targeting flows around hydraulic structures, two-phase (gas-liquid and solid-liquid) free-surface flows, turbulence in steady and unsteady open channel flows, using computation, lab-scale experiments, field work and analysis. He has published over 1,000 peer reviewed publications and more than 20 books. His h-index is 71, 45 and 41 in Google Scholar, Scopus and Web of Science. He serves on the editorial boards of International Journal of Multiphase Flow, Flow Measurement and Instrumentation, and Environmental Fluid Mechanics, the latter of which he is currently a senior Editor. He co-chairs the Organisation of the 22nd Australasian Fluid Mechanics Conference to be held in Brisbane, Australia.