Bibliographic details and abstracts are available to all. Downloads of full-text dissertations are restricted to University of Portsmouth members who must login. MPhils may be accessed by all.

Abstract

Culverts serve a critical role in water management, particularly during heavy rainfall and flooding, by preventing inundation and protecting land from damage. The design of hydraulic structures is heavily influenced by culvert properties such as hydraulic jump length and sequential depth ratio. Corrugated beds within culverts have been identified as effective in enhancing energy absorption and mitigating the adverse impacts of hydraulic jumps. This study aims to determine the optimum culvert type with a corrugated bed to increase flood resilience under various flow conditions. The experiment was conducted in the hydraulics laboratory at the University of Portsmouth, examining circular and box culvert types with sinusoidal and rough bed corrugations. Results show that box culverts demonstrate superior flow discharge compared to circular culverts, with lower upstream water level rise (83.9% vs. 117.7%) for the same discharge. Sinusoidal corrugations on box culverts achieved the highest energy dissipation (71.8%), while rough surfaces with box culverts (51.7%) offer a potentially more cost-effective solution. Depending on design priorities and project-specific requirements, different structural combinations can be selected for efficient design. This study concludes that a box culvert with a rough surface offers suitable efficiency in both flood resilience and energy dissipation.

Course: Civil Engineering - MSc - C0618

Date Deposited: 2025-01-16

URI/permalink: https://library.port.ac.uk/dissert/dis14646.html