REINFORCED CONCRETE BRIDGES

CULVERT

Culvert is a tunnel carrying a stream under a road or railway. A culvert may act as a bridge for
traffic to pass on it. They are typically found in a natural flow of water and serves the purpose of
a bridge or a current flow controller.Culverts are available in many and shape like round,
elliptical, flat-bottomed, pear-shaped, and box-like constructions. Culverts are by their load and
water flow capacities, lifespan and installation of bedding and backfill. The type is based on a
number of factors including hydraulic, upstream elevation, and roadway height and other
conditions.

Following are the different types of Culvert:

 Pipe culvert (single or multiple)
 Pipe-Arch culvert (single or multiple)
 Box culvert (single or multiple)
 Arch culvert
 Bridge culvert
 Metal box culvert
1. BOX CULVERT:

Box culverts are made up of concrete and especially, RCC (Reinforced Concrete). The most
challenging part in constructing a box culvert is that dry surface is needed for installing it.
However, due to the strength of the concrete floor, water direction can be changed when a large
amount of water is expected. This feature makes box culverts, one of the most commonly found
types of the culvert.

Box Culvert.
Advantages of Box Culvert
Box Culverts are economical for the reasons mentioned below:
 The box culvert is a rigid frame structure and very simple in construction
 It is Suitable for non-perennial streams where scrub depth is not significant but the soil is
weak.
 The bottom slab of the box culvert reduces pressure on the soil.
 Box culverts are economical due to their rigidity and monolithic action and separate
foundations are not required.
 It is used in special cases, weak foundation.
2. Pipe Culvert
The Pipe culvert is used for very small drainage works, passing through the embankment of road
or railway. It consists of one or more pipes placed side by side. These are made of smooth steel,
corrugated metal or concrete materials. The pipe culvert ranges from 30 to 200 cm in diameter
and is the cheapest among others. The primary purpose is to pass the water under roads. For the
high stream banks round culverts are best suited.
Pipe culverts are the most common types of culverts due to competitive price and easy
installation. They are found in different shapes such as circular, elliptical and pipe arch.
Generally, their shapes depend on site conditions and constraints. Pipe culverts on a small scale
represent normal pipes like concrete pipes.

Pipe culvert

Advantages of Pipe Culvert: The main features of pipe culverts are:

 It can be constructed of any desired strength by proper mix design, thickness, and
reinforcement.
 They are economical.
 These pipes can withhold any tensile stresses and compressive stresses.
 The crossing of water is under the structure.
Disadvantages of Pipe Culvert: The main disadvantage of pipe culvert is that it can be easily
corroded at the crown because of bacteria‘s organic matter and release of harmful gas, which is
known as Crown corrosion.
Uses of Pipe Culverts
 In lowland paths construction.
 In upland paths where suitable stones are not available to build cross drains or stone
culvert.
3. Slab Culverts
Slab Culvert is one where a RCC or stone slabs are provided to cross the waterway. Other
elements of the Culvert such as piers, abutments and foundation may be of either RCC or
masonry. The slab is not cast monolithic with the abutments/ piers. Generally a slab Culvert
directly carries the road traffic without any cushion

Slab culverts do not have bottom slabs, therefore, the natural flow of water is maintained and
natural bottom substrate remains intact. The safety of high-velocity vehicles is not affected by
slab culvert as it doesn't have any sharp corner.
While constructing the slab culvert, a series of slabs are laid to form the bridge-like structure.
After that, a pavement surface is placed on top to serve the purpose as the road.

4. Balance Cantilever Bridges

Balanced cantilever bridges are adopted for comparatively longer spans where simply supported,
continuous or rigid frame type superstructures are found unsuitable. Simply supported decks of
any type having spans more than 20 to 25 m. require comparatively greater depths and therefore,
become uneconomical.

On the other-hand, continuous or rigid frame type bridges, though cheaper, must be founded on
unyielding foundations since otherwise unequal settlement of the foundations may induce
harmful stresses and thereby cracks may develop in the members. Balanced cantilever bridges
are combination of the simply supported and continuous structures.

They have the advantages of simply supported as well as continuous structures, viz.:

(1) The structures are statically determinate and the moments, shears etc., may be found out by
the basic rules of statics and

(2) The possibility of cracks due to unequal settlement of the foundations is eliminated.
(3) This type of structure is also comparable to some extent with continuous structures since the
free positive moment at mid-span is partly balanced by the negative moment caused by the
cantilever and thereby leads to economy in materials.
A simple cantilever span is formed by two cantilever arms extending from opposite sides of an
obstacle to be crossed, meeting at the center. In a common variant, the suspended span, the
cantilever arms do not meet in the center; instead, they support a central truss bridge which rests
on the ends of the cantilever arms. The suspended span may be built off-site and lifted into place,
or constructed in place using special travelling supports.

A common way to construct steel truss and prestressed concrete cantilever spans is to
counterbalance each cantilever arm with another cantilever arm projecting the opposite direction,
forming a balanced cantilever; when they attach to a solid foundation, the counterbalancing arms
are called anchor arms. Thus, in a bridge built on two foundation piers, there are four cantilever
arms: two which span the obstacle, and two anchor arms which extend away from the obstacle.
Because of the need for more strength at the balanced cantilever's supports, the bridge
superstructure often takes the form of towers above the foundation piers.
5. Rigid Frame bridge
A Rigid-frame bridge is a bridge in which the superstructure and substructure are rigidly
connected to act as a continuous unit. Typically, the structure is cast monolithically, making the
structure continuous from deck to foundation. The connections between members are rigid
connections which transfer bending moment, axial forces, and shear forces. A bridge design
consisting of a rigid frame can provide significant structural benefits, but can also be difficult to
design and/or construct.
Types of rigid-frame bridge

Single span: Single span rigid-frame bridges are typically made of reinforced concrete and are
commonly used on parkways and other roadways. This design is an efficient use of material as
the cross section at mid-span is relatively narrow and the amount of concrete needed at the
abutments is reduced. The narrow section at mid-span gives the bridge profile a slight arch shape
making this design particularly useful when large headroom is required. The profile also makes
the bridge more architecturally pleasing than a beam bridge. Rigid-frame design may be the most
efficient bridge type for spans between 35 and 80 feet. If steel is used, the economic advantage
extends to spans of 120 feet.

V-shaped: A v-shaped rigid frame is an efficient way to support a longer bridge where using
only one span isn't feasible. Each v-shaped pier supports the deck in two places while only
requiring one foundation. The bending moments experienced in the piers are minimal, allowing
significant reductions in the foundation size. Additionally, the effective length of each span is
shortened compared to the spans of a bridge with vertical piers. However, this system is less
commonly used in rigid frame bridges because the piers need to be approximately centered under
the bridge. Often the bridges span over roadways or waterways and construction of piers in those
cases can be costly and challenging.
Batter-post: Batter-post rigid frame bridges are defined by their supports that run from the deck
to the abutments at an angle. This design supports the deck in a similar way to v-shaped piers but
differs in how the foundations must be built. The piers bear on or next to the abutments,
eliminating the need for foundations directly beneath the bridge. This is particularly
advantageous when the bridge crosses a river and constructing a foundation in the water is
challenging. As a result, either the abutments have to be made larger or additional foundations
must be placed next to the abutments.

6. Continuous Girder bridges:

Continuous girder bridges are suitable when unyielding supports are available. The spans can be
equal but usually the end spans are kept about 16 -20 % smaller than intermediate span. The
decking can be in form of slab, T beam, box section. The bending moments and shear force at
various sections can be calculated by influence lines. In case of continuous span bridges, the
thickness at support will be approximately 1.5 -1.8 times the minimum thickness at mid span.
The advantages in favour of continuous bridges are:
(i) Unlike simply supported bridges, these structures require only one line of bearings over piers
thus reducing the number of bearings in the superstructure as well as the width of the piers.
(ii) Due to reduction in the width of pier, less obstruction to flow and as such possibility of less
scour.
(iii) Require less number of expansion joints due to which both the initial cost and the
maintenance cost become less. The riding quality over the bridge is thus improved.
(iv) Reduces depth at mid-span due to which vertical clearance or headroom is increased. This
may bring down the bridge deck level reducing thereby not only the cost of the approaches but
also the cost of substructure due to lesser height of piers and abutments which again reduces the
cost of the foundation.
(v) Better architectural appearance.
Disadvantages of Continuous Bridges: The disadvantages are:
(i) Analysis is laborious and time consuming.
(ii) Not suitable on yielding foundations. Differential settlement may cause undesirable stresses.