Analysis of pressure on the roof of a culvert underneath a ditch with compressible material covered by a geosynthetic layer

Abstract

The load reduction mechanism of compressible material filled ditch covered with a geosynthetic layer is investigated. A mathematical model of the pressure on the roof of the culvert is established. Equations for calculating the earth pressure acting on the geosynthetic layer are derived. Considering the support effect of the compressible backfill underneath the geosynthetics layer, an equation is derived to calculate the deflection of the geosynthetic layer under the embankment fill loading. The pressure acting on the roof of the culvert is calculated by force analysis. The predicted results by the proposed method agree well with the test results.

Keywords:

• Culvert
• embankment fill
• earth pressure
• geosynthetic
• load reduction
• efficiency

Acknowledgement

The work in this paper is supported by grants from National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) (No. 51678223) and National Key R&D Program of China (No. 2016YFC0502208). The authors would like to express their appreciation to the financial assistance.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.