ON THE OPTIMAL RISK BASED DESIGN OF HIGHWAY DRAINAGE STRUCTURES

For a proposed highway bridge or culvert, the total cost to the public during its expected service life includes capital investment on the structures, regular operation and maintenance costs, and various flood related costs. The flood related damage costs include items such as replacement and repair costs of the highway bridge or culvert, flood plain property damage costs, users costs from traffic interruptions and detours, and others. As the design discharge increases, the required capital investment increases but the corresponding flood related damage costs decrease. Hydraulic design of a bridge or culvert using a riskbased approach is to choose among the alternatives the one associated with the least total expected cost. In this paper, the risk-based design procedure is applied to pipe culvert design. The effect of the hydrologic uncertainties such as sample size and type of flood distribution model on the optimal culvert design parameters including design return period and total expected cost are examined in this paper. © 1990 Springer-Verlag.