Experimental Study of Precast Culvert Design with Arcuate Corners

Abstract

A precast culvert with arcuate corners was designed for the purpose of reducing the amount of reinforcement and the production cost. By changing the shape of the corners from rectangular to arcuate, the bending moment was reduced by up to 45% compared with the normal rectangular shape in the trial design. As a result, a reduction in the amount of reinforcement of up to 40% was achieved. To confirm the performance when reversed cyclic loads are applied during an earthquake, performance verification tests were conducted on the corners. The load carrying performance was confirmed to exceed the value calculated by frame analysis, and the deformation capacity was found to satisfy the design codes. This paper describes the design outline, the results of the performance verification test and its analysis.