Mechanism of Long-Term Excessive Deformation and Delayed Shear Failure of Underground RC Box Culverts

Abstract

The aim of this study is to clarify the mechanism of the progressive excessive deformation observed in real underground RC box culverts of about 30 years of age. It was found by the site-inspection, monitoring and the destructive testing that the excessive deflection of top slabs for the culverts, which is almost 10 times the design estimated value, accompanies the out-of-plane shear failure. It is also computationally investigated that the coupling of subsidence of the backfill soil and the combined creep and shrinkage of concrete after cracking is closely associated with the delayed shear failure found in the culvert in service. In order to prove the delayed shear failure under higher sustained loads, the time-dependent shear crack propagation was reproduced in the laboratory test and the computational approach used in this study was examined.