Minimum Depth of Soil Cover above Soil–Steel Bridges

Soil–steel bridges are built of flexible corrugated steel panels buried in well-compacted granular soil. Their design is based on the composite interaction between the soil pressures and the displacements of the conduit wall. The structure failure could be initiated by shear or tension failure in the soil cover above the steel conduit. The provisions for design given in different codes, such as the Canadian Highway Bridge Design Code, managed to avoid some of the problems associated with the failure of soil above soil–steel bridges by requiring a minimum depth of soil cover over the crown of the conduit taking into consideration the geometric shape of the conduit. However, the present code requirements for a minimum depth of cover were developed for a maximum span of 7.62 m and using nonstiffened panels of 51 mm depth of corrugation. The effect of having larger spans or using more rigid corrugated panels has not been examined before and is the subject of this paper. The present study uses the finite-element analysis to re-examine the possible soil failures due to centric live loads (i.e., loads acting symmetrically about the mid span of conduit) or eccentric live loads. The study deals with spans up to 15.24 m of circular conduits and 21.3 m of arches with deep corrugations. It has been found that, in addition to the conduit geometry, the actual dimension of the span should be considered to determine the required depth of soil cover.