Culvert Replacement Using Pipe Ramming Tunneling, or Pipe Jacking
Abstract
Culverts are major drainage features under highways. Corrugated metal pipes (CMP) were typically used as the culvert material starting in the 1930s, with widespread usage in the 1950s and 1960s. These culverts have since corroded, sagged, and/or collapsed. With a 50-year life cycle, culvert replacement is now a major issue for most state departments of transportation (DOTs). Originally, the culverts were installed using open trench excavation methods while a highway was under construction. Engineered fill was used to bury the culvert as the highway embankment was constructed. The backfill was typically native materials, compacted in lifts with undocumented quality control. To replace these aging culverts, open trenching of the existing highway is not possible. Culvert replacement with trenchless methods is the only solution.
Engineers face several issues when looking to replace aging culverts, including:
- Providing structural repair to the culvert
- Providing increased hydraulic capacity
- Meeting new structural requirements for load capacity or seismic design
- Allowing passage of new maximum flood events
- Meeting new environmental requests to improved wildlife habitats<
- Restoring eroded backfill materials
Culvert rehabilitation methods may include traditional rehabilitation methods like slip lining, fold and form, inversion processes, and other relining systems. However, all of these methods sacrifice internal diameter. Other culvert replacement approaches include either consuming the existing pipe with an entirely new culvert or installing a new culvert parallel to the existing culvert with the old culvert either being rehabilitated or abandoned. This paper will discuss these other culvert replacement approaches and cite the advantages and design issues faced when using pipe ramming, tunneling, or pipe jacking as the construction method.
2010
International No-Dig Show Proceedings
Craig Camp
Jacobs Associates
Glenn Boyce
Jacobs Associates
Al Tenbusch
Tenbusch, Inc.
