Author(s): Francisco Nicolas Cantero-Chinchilla; Gilles Belaud; Oscar Castro-Orgaz; Luciano Mateos

Linked Author(s): Gilles Belaud

Keywords: Gated culvert; Culvert flow; Experimental data; Rice irrigation

Abstract: Culverts are hydraulic structures comprising closed conduits used to control the water flow under a plethora of circumstances, among which their application to cross-drainage engineering is the most common. However, culverts are also common in agricultural settings such as rice irrigation schemes. Enhancing water resources management involving culverts is, hence, key to improve water usage worldwide. To that purpose, a thorough assessment of the hydraulic performance of culverts is a requisite. The study of culvert flow is rather complex as depends on boundary and geometrical conditions, whose combination leads to a plethora of flow solutions regardless its cross-sectional shape, among which the steady solutions are ordinarily studied upon design. As for their assessment, the inlet-outlet control-based classification has been traditionally used. In this classification, the location of the control section determines the type of control: inlet and outlet control when the control section is at the upstream or downstream end of the hydraulic structure, respectively. Based on this classification, design guides have proposed different grouping of steady flow states such as those by the United States Geological Survey (USGS) service and the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA). However, culverts with inlet control elements, such as sluice gates, are popular in both cross-sectional drainage and irrigation systems. The inclusion of the upstream control gate in culverts increases the number of steady flow solutions expected, to which the scarce models available on gated culverts fall short to approximate all likely solutions. In addition, the lack of a substantial data base of both field and laboratory data on flow through gated culverts limits the assessment of the hydraulic features as well as model validation. This study provides a comprehensive classification of steady flow states and a laboratory data set on flow through gated circular culverts. The data set revealed important flow features and modelling requirements that this communication will discuss based on an integrated, case-independent hydraulic model proposal.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3850/IAHR-39WC2521711920221408

Year: 2022