Department of Transport and Main Roads Appendix 10A

Road Drainage Manual Worked Examples

Appendix 10A
Worked Examples

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 Department of Transport and Main Roads Appendix 10A
Road Drainage Manual Worked Examples

Appendix 10A Amendments – Mar 2010

Revision Register
Issue/ Reference Description of Revision Authorised Date
Rev Section by
No.
1 - Initial Release of 2nd Ed of manual. Steering Mar
Committee 2010

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Department of Transport and Main Roads Appendix 10A
Road Drainage Manual Worked Examples

Floodway Example
Refer to Chapter 9 - Culverts Design and Chapter 10 – Floodway Design.
This example illustrates the principles of floodway design, as described in Chapter 10.
The task for this example is to design a floodway with 20 year trafficability, over a natural open
channel approximately trapezoidal in shape. The floodway would be approximately 90 to 100
m long and for cost reasons, road batters will be grass covered only for protection against scour.

Preliminary Considerations:
 Because the batters will be protected by grass only, culverts will be required to build up the
tailwater to not more than 300 mm below the edge of the downstream shoulder when
overtopping of the road first occurs. Allowing for crossfall, there will be a head of 450 mm
and a velocity of about 2.30-2.45 m/s through the culverts if this minimum tailwater is
adopted. Is this acceptable on this job? (This will be answered in the example).
 For 20 year ARI trafficability, the floodway level should be at the 20 year unrestricted flood
level to allow the maximum amount of water over the road and save on culvert and overall
costs.
In general it is only in very long floodways with very little velocity in the open channel and/or
where costly protection is unavoidable, that increasing culvert requirements by raising the road,
thus decreasing the flow over the road (to the extreme of a flood free road) may reduce the
overall cost of the job.

Step 1.
List all relevant criteria:
 Required standard: Trafficable in a 20 year ARI flood.
 Time of closure: Maximum of 1 day in a 50 year ARI flood. (Calculated hydrograph shows
this maximum only a matter of hours - not included here).
 Batter protection: Grass.
 Width of floodway: 10 m. 10
 Road crossfall: 3 %.
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Step 2.
Calculate the rating curve for the unre-stricted channel.
Using open channel hydraulic calculations (as discussed in Chapter 8):
Q50 = 162 m³/s @ Ht 322.76 m,

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Q20 = 130.4 m³/s @ Ht 322.58 m (V = 0.68 m/s),

Q10 = 108.1 m³/s @ Ht 322.44 m, and
Q5 = 70 m³/s @ Ht 322.13 m.

Step 3.
Adopt a road level and calculate the maxi mum allowable depth of water over the road.
Adopt the road level at the unrestricted 20 year ARI flood level and show the cross-sectional
details in figure below.

From Section 10.3, closure to traffic occurs when:

V2
H d   300mm
2g

The maximum allowable depth of water over the road, y, occurs when H = 0.300 m.
Therefore:
V2 0.68 2
dH   0.3 
2g 2  9.8

d = 0.28 m

Step 4.

10 Calculate the discharge over the road and through the culverts in a 20 year ARI flood.
The total discharge over the road and through the culverts must equal the discharge in the
A unrestricted channel downstream with flow at height 322.58 m.
i.e. Qtot = QR + QC = 130.4 m³/s
Flow over the road:
C 
Q  C f LH 1.5  s  (Section 10.5.2 for ‘free’ flow, tailwater not above crown level of
C 
 f 
road)

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where Cf = coefficient of discharge.

From Figure 10.5.2:
H/1 = 0.30/10 = 0.03, which is < 0.15
Therefore:
Cf = 1.674

 L = length of floodway = 94 m
 H = 0.30 m
Therefore:
Q  1.674  94  0.31.5
Q = 25.9 m³/s
Discharge through culverts:
QC = Qtot - Q = 130.4 - 25.9 = 104.5 m³/s
Therefore, culverts are required to take a discharge of 104.5 m³/s operating under a head of 0.30
m and outlet control for this design condition.

Step 5.
Detailed culvert design.
Proceed with the design of culverts to take 104.5 m³/s.
Height of culvert opening, D, from:
D = Crown level of road - crossfall - minimum fill above culvert - thickness of deck slab -
invert level
D = 322.58 - 5 x 0.03 - 0.100 - 0.180 - 320.55 = 1.60 m.
For culvert design:
Outlet control with H = 0.30 m
Tailwater at Ht 322.58 m, HW at Ht 322.88 m
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Invert at Ht 320.50 m, say
From culvert design procedure in Chapter 9:
13 / 2700 x 1500 RCBC have a capacity of 104m³/s with Outlet Velocity = 1.98 m/s.

Adopt 13 / 2700 x 1500 RCBC and Floodway Ht 322.58 m and Length 94 m.

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Step 6.
Check for culvert requirements when the flood is at the point of overtopping the road.
By trial and error, calculate flow through culvert at point where headwater height is 322.58 m.
Confirm that flow velocity through culvert is less than 2.5 m/s.

Step 7.
Confirm that velocity criteria is met.

Step 8.
Calculate afflux for ARI 50 year flow and confirm that criteria is met.

End of Example

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Department of Transport and Main Roads Appendix 10A
Road Drainage Manual Worked Examples

AATOC Example
The design floods have been calculated for the bridge for a range of probabilities. In this case
the bridge is overtopped for a flood with a discharge of 400 m3/s, so has a flood immunity of
approximately ARI 3 years.

The design floods are plotted as follows.

1200

1000

800
ARI 100 years
Discharge - m3/s

ARI 50 years
ARI 20 years
600 ARI 10 years
ARI 5 years
ARI 2 years

400

200

0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40
Time - h

The times of submergence are listed in the following table.

ARI - years TOS - hours

2 0.0

5 4.0

10 5.0

20 6.0 10
100
50 7.0

7.5
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The average annual times of submergence are calculated as shown in the following, assuming
that the time of submergence for the PMF is 12 hours.

ARI (yrs) ToS FT(t) fT(T) Area Area*ToS

(hrs)
2 0 0.500

3 0 0.667

5 4 0.800 0.033 0.133 0.267

10 5 0.900 0.100 0.100 0.450

20 6 0.950 0.050 0.050 0.275

50 7 0.980 0.030 0.030 0.195

100 7.5 0.990 0.020 0.010 0.073

1E+99 12 1.000 0.002 0.010 0.098

AATOS 1.357

End of Example

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