North Bay High Street Culvert project results in 3.6m x 4.2m Precast Concrete Box Culvert

The City of North Bay designed and tendered the project for the High Street Culvert. The design, fabrication, and delivery was awarded to M CON Pipe and Products Ltd. (Ayr, Ontario). The install of the culvert was awarded to Ed Séguin and Sons Trucking and Paving Ltd. The City of North Bay’s Engineering team sized the culvert to match the existing culvert capacity which exceeded the hydrological requirements for a culvert crossing, as well as ensuring the size would provide enough room for creating a suitable fish habitat. This resulted in a box culvert sized at 3.6m x 4.2m. The M CON Pipe and Products engineering team provided the structural design for this culvert.

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Completed clamshell culvert install

This project was also challenged with a tight schedule of eight weeks from the demolition of the existing infrastructure to the complete installation of this new culvert. The decision to uthese a precast concrete box was mostly due to its long service life. The rapid replacement capability of using precast concrete elements is an important feature when considering the impact of detour roads and increased congestions due to the road closure.

Given the large size of this precast concrete box structure and the location of the culvert, the weight of each culvert piece posed challenges. The City of North Bay’s design team worked with M CON’s engineering and technical team to redesign the structure as a clamshell box culvert. Essentially splitting each culvert section into a top and bottom section. This allowed Seguin Trucking, the GC on the project, to more effectively coordinate and place the structure.

Clamshell-culvert-install

The City of North Bay, as the owner of this new infrastructure, is very pleased with the project’s outcome and the ability of both M CON and Seguin Trucking to provide solutions to the challenges posed by this project.

By: Reid Porter, P.Eng. Infrastructure Engineer, City of North Bay.