By: ViaCon Türkiye
The 7×4-sized hydraulic reinforced concrete culvert had been operating for nearly 50 years and had needed reinforcement after structural damage over the years. The current line of the Turkish Highway General Management is one of the regions with the heaviest amount of traffic. There is approximately 37 million vehicles per year on the highway with roughly 102,000 vehicles passing over it daily. With this amount of traffic, it was impossible to shut down the highway for any amount of time.
Originally, the replacement culvert was designed as a reinforced concrete solution 
but after review of the lead time and construction time, it was decided that this was simply not possible. The engineers worked with ViaCon to create a steel culvert system solution which was completed in only 3 days. Once the new steel culvert was installed, concrete was injected between the existing concrete culvert and the steel structure to ensure a solid replacement job and minimizing any structural damage that may have occurred. Thanks to the new steel pipe, the updated culvert’s lifespan is now over 75 years.