Simulation of the hydraulic performance of highway filter drains through laboratory models and stormwater management tools

Luis A Sañudo-Fontaneda,Stephen J Coupe,Daniel Jato-Espino,Craig Lashford

doi:10.1007/s11356-017-9170-7

Luis A Sañudo-Fontaneda, Stephen J Coupe + Show 2 more

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Road drainage is one of the most relevant assets in transport infrastructure due to its inherent influence on traffic management and road safety. Highway filter drains (HFDs), also known as "French Drains", are the main drainage system currently in use in the UK, throughout 7000km of its strategic road network. Despite being a widespread technique across the whole country, little research has been completed on their design considerations and their subsequent impact on their hydraulic performance, representing a gap in the field. Laboratory experiments have been proven to be a reliable indicator for the simulation of the hydraulic performance of stormwater best management practices (BMPs). In addition to this, stormwater management tools (SMT) have been preferentially chosen as a design tool for BMPs by practitioners from all over the world. In this context, this research aims to investigate the hydraulic performance of HFDs by comparing the results from laboratory simulation and two widely used SMT such as the US EPA's stormwater management model (SWMM) and MicroDrainage®. Statistical analyses were applied to a series of rainfall scenarios simulated, showing a high level of accuracy between the results obtained in laboratory and using SMT as indicated by the high and low values of the Nash-Sutcliffe and R 2 coefficients and root-mean-square error (RMSE) reached, which validated the usefulness of SMT to determine the hydraulic performance of HFDs.

Highlights

The UK has one of the densest road networks in Europe, consisting of nearly 1.8 km road/km2 land area (Nicodeme et al 2012) and more than 300 billion vehicle miles in 2014 (UK Department of Transports2015)
Statistical analyses were applied to a series of rainfall scenarios simulated, showing a high level of accuracy between the results obtained in laboratory and using Stormwater Management Tools (SMT) as indicated by the high and low values of the Nash-Sutcliffe and R2 coefficients and Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) reached, which validated the usefulness of SMT to determine the hydraulic performance of Highway Filter Drains (HFD)
The results of all experiments carried out in the laboratory models and the simulations developed in the stormwater management tools (SWMM and MicroDrainage®) are presented and discussed in this point

Summary

Introduction

To ensure safety, road condition and environmental protection (Coupe et al 2015), Filter. Drains (FDs) (Highway Filter Drains -HFDs- when used in Highways/Motorways), known as “French. Drains”, have been implemented and maintained in 7,000 km of the UK’s Strategic Road Network (SRN). HFDs catch the runoff, safely removing it from the carriageway, and treat the pollutants washed off from the road whilst reducing the runoff peak-flow before discharging into natural watercourses downstream or conventional drainage systems (Woods-Ballard et al 2015). Of dual carriageways and motorways use FDs as their main drainage asset. Spain has implemented the use of FDs as a Sustainable Drainage System (SuDS) instead of a more conventional road technique as in the UK, having achieved promising results as shown in Castro-Fresno et al (2013), Andrés-Valeri et al.

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