A Scaled Physical Model Study of Culvert Blockage Exploring Complex Relationships Between Influential Factors

ABSTRACT

Blockage of cross-drainage hydraulic structures (e.g., bridges, culverts) is reported as an exacerbating factor during flash flooding in Wollongong and Newcastle. Lack of data from flooding events and the fragmentary nature of post-flood data are the factors hindering research in studying the impact of blockage on the performance of hydraulic structures. This paper proposes lab-scale simulations using scaled physical models of culverts to study the behaviour and effects of urban and vegetative debris. The first investigation studies the interaction between specific debris types with culvert inlet geometries and their impact on the hydraulic blockage. In the second investigation, a flood hydrograph is simulated in the laboratory to study complex relationships between blockage-related influential factors and to relate the observed visual blockage and hydraulic blockage. From the results of first investigation, urban debris was reported the main contributor in increasing the hydraulic blockage at structures. Furthermore, the degree of hydraulic blockage was found sensitive to the orientation of the debris. Results from the second investigation reported several insights regarding the complex relationships between blockage-related influential factors. The temporally variable nature of blockage was observed from the experiments that suggested revising the existing constant blockage based Australian Rainfall and Runoff (ARR) guidelines.

KEYWORDS:

• Hydraulic blockage
• visual blockage
• cross-drainage structures
• scaled physical models
• urban flash floods

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank the Wollongong City Council (WCC) for funding this investigation. This research was funded by the Smart Cities and Suburb Program (Round Two) of the Australian Government, grant number SCS69244. Further, I would like to thank the Higher Education Commission (HEC) of Pakistan and the University of Wollongong (UOW) for funding my Ph.D studies. I am thankful to my fellow Muhammad Zain Bin Riaz for his assisstance in executing the lab experiments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Orientations: Nose-in, Sideways – Front Facing Culvert, Sideways – Front Facing Out, Upside Down.

2. Orientations: Position 1 – Left, Position 2 – Center, Position 3 – Wheels Up, Position 4 – Right, Position – Nose-in (for single circular culvert only).

3. Orientations: Sideways, Nose-in (for single circular only).

4. Orientations: Sideways, Nose-in (for single circular only).

5. Orientations: Grass only, Tree Logs only, Mixed.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Umair Iqbal

Umair Iqbal is a PhD scholar at the University of Wollongong (UOW), Wollongong, Australia in the field of computer vision and machine learning. He received his MS (Robotics and Intelligent Machine Engineering) degree in 2015 from National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST), Islamabad, Pakistan. His research is oriented around deploying Artificial Intelligence (AI) based solutions in disaster management domain.

Johan Barthelemy

Dr. Johan Barthelemy, after a PhD in Applied Mathematics at the University of Namur (Belgium), joined the SMART Infrastructure Facility of the University of Wollongong where he is currently a lecturer and the leader of the Digital Living Lab. Over the last few years, he has been exploring the fields of Computer Vision, Artificial Intelligence, the Internet-of-Things and the Artificial Intelligence of Things, leading to the development of the Versatile Intelligent Video Analytics platform and intelligent remote monitoring devices. Applications of his research include privacy-preserving real-time intelligent video analytics for smart cities, critical infrastructure remote monitoring, stormwater management and flash flood early warning systems.

Pascal Perez

Prof. Pascal Perez is the Director of the SMART Infrastructure Facility at the University of Wollongong, overseeing research in infrastructure-related fields such as water and energy efficiency, future transport and mobility, smart cities and communities, as well as infrastructure system engineering and logistics. He is a specialist of integrative infrastructure modelling and socio-technological transitions. Pascal is a Fellow of the Modelling and Simulation Society of Australia and New Zealand (MSSANZ) and a Fellow of the Royal Society of New South Wales. He is the Chair of the Australian Urban Research Infrastructure Network’s Scientific Advisory Committee (AURIN), as well as a member of the Executive Council of IOT Alliance Australia (IOTAA), and a member of the International Advisory Board of UK’s Collaboratorium for Research on Infrastructure and Cities (UKCRIC).

Jason Cooper

Jason Cooper is a senior floodplain management officer at Wollongong City Council (WCC). He is experienced in designing hydraulic structures and investigating the blockage of hydraulic structures in Illawarra region, NSW, Australia.

Wanqing Li

Wanqing Li (SM'12) received his PhD in electronic engineering from The University of Western Australia. He was a Senior Researcher and later a Principal Researcher (98-03) at Motorola Research Lab, and a visiting researcher (08, 10 and 13) at Microsoft Research US. He is currently an Associate Professor and Director of Advanced Multimedia Research Lab (AMRL) of University of Wollongong, Australia. His research areas are machine learning, 3D computer vision, 3D multimedia signal processing, medical image analysis and their applications. He has published 200+ referred papers in his research fields. Dr. Li is a Senior Member of IEEE and serves as Technical Program Co-Chair of IEEE ICME 2021. He is an Associate Editor for IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems for Video Technology and IEEE Transactions on Multimedia. He was an Associate Editor for Journal of Visual Communication and Image Representation, Elsevier.