Ideas for creek crossing

[kickinbull]

A friend posed a question today at monthly breakfast about building some kind of creek crossing on his place. It is at the main entrance to his farm. Which means it will need to support vehicles and a large tractor. The distance across is over 60 feet. The water is slow in August but now it's deep and swift after 1 in plus rain. The bottom it's in is mostly gravel. He's dug down 4 feet on the banks not finding any solid base.when creek is running big the bottom of it gets sponge. Of course looking for least cost. What are some things you have done that works?

 

[Caustic Burno]

Tank car culvert.
Put a couple in and backfill .

http://railroadyard.com/railroad-tank-c ... -for-sale/

 

[greybeard]

Tank car culvert.
Put a couple in and backfill .

http://railroadyard.com/railroad-tank-c ... -for-sale/

He didn't say how deep the channel is but I suspect if it's fairly deep, It will need more than a couple. Most RR tank cars are 10.8" wide. The total opening area of the installed culverts will need to equal whatever the 60' wide opening flows now, otherwise, water will just back up until it reaches a significant enough level to overtop the new roadway and the flow over the top will just wash out whatever he covered the tank car culverts with.
A couple of those culverts might work for a moderate flow, but even if the channel is only 4' deep, a full channel flow 60' wide can carry a heck of a lot more water than two 10' 8" diameter culverts can.

 

[Caustic Burno]

It doesn't need to equal the 60'.
The conservation agent for his district can calculate the flows and culverts needed. I seen too many bridges replaced by the county after Rita to concrete culverts with a lot less surface area.
It is the same theory as gates on a dam as the level goes up upstream so does pressure increasing flow through the culvert.

 

[greybeard]

He can suit himself I guess. But flow from a channel 10' deep X 60' wide is not going to be contained within 2 culverts totaling 1/3 of that channel's capacity. (I used 10' deep as the depth parameter because I assume he wants the 10' diameter RR tanks covered and some sort of driving surface on top of them)

 

[Caustic Burno]

GB I thought the state was nuts with the concrete culverts on the creek through my place. They replaced the bridge on the county road that had double the surface area underneath. I stood in the road and told that engineer the road was going to flood wash out next big rain leaving us stranded. That engineer knew his hydraulics I will give him that.
It handled Harvey like a summer shower. The crow wasn't too bad feet were a little chewy.

 

[kickinbull]

A couple of ideas he's got are using steel or plastic culverts.

 

[BigBear]

CB beat me too it. My cousin used 2 shipping containers as culverts back home. They had no problem handling the weight of the combine or 800 bu gravity wagon.