Debris Control Structures Evaluation and Countermeasures

Course Summary:

The purpose of this course is to provide information on debris accumulation, guidelines for analyzing impacts associated with debris accumulation, and design guidelines for selecting debris control countermeasures. The design guidelines are based on countermeasures that have been implemented by federal, State, and local transportation agencies at culvert and bridge structures.

This course is organized to provide the following:

• Summarize the various types of debris and the problems associated with debris accumulation at culvert and bridge structures (Chapter 2)
• Provide a general procedure for estimating the volume of floating debris upstream of a bridge site, the potential for the debris to accumulate on a bridge structure, and the potential maximum size of the debris accumulation (Chapter3).
• Provide general guidelines for analyzing and modeling debris accumulations on a bridge structure to determine the impacts the debris would have on the water surface profile through the bridge structure and the hydraulic loading on the structure (CHAPTER 4).
• Summarize (describe) the various types of debris countermeasures available for culvert and bridge structures (CHAPTER 5).
• Provide general criteria for selection of debris countermeasures for culvert and bridge structures, and provide design guidelines for structural countermeasures for which guidelines are available (CHAPTER 6).
• Provide general information on maintenance practices (CHAPTER 7).
• Provide references and source materials that provide additional, more comprehensive information on debris and debris issues. The references are grouped alphabetically, by author.

Learning Objective:

• Debris characterization
• Estimating debris quantities
• Analyzing and modeling debris impacts to structures
• Debris countermeasures
• Design procedures for Debris countermeasures
• Maintenance
• Appendix A: Metric System, conversions and water properties
• Appendix B: State Survey

Review the quiz before studying the course.

Course Content

Course Author: US Department of Transportation