Rectangular Storm Sewer Design Under Equal Sediment Mobility

Abstract

Rectangular storm sewers are conduits delivering water to outfall locations and have sizes that are typically larger than standard pipes, by which they become subject to more sediment deposits during operation and thus require higher flow strengths to maintain the bed clean. This study suggests a design procedure of self-cleansing rectangular sewers based on maintaining a lower limit of Shields stress and an upper limit of dimensionless bedload transport capacity. The lower limit of Shields stress is proposed under two considerations: to sustain equal sediment mobility at the channel bottom instead of selective transport and to avoid progressive deposition of finer grains due to low and reducing flows. The upper dimensionless bedload capacity is determined rationally and confirmed by using experimental data obtained from the literature. An existing bedload transport equation developed under equal sediment mobility is modified to provide a basis for the design method. It is shown that the proposed design procedure can practically be applied for a channel to estimate sediment concentrations by setting the required flow strength of Shields tress and particle size. Charts are given as an example for determining explicitly the channel design parameters. The study demonstrates that despite the high flows imposed, the design specifications determined according to this criterion can reasonably be achieved in practice for a given project.