Initial design of urban drainage systems for extreme rainfall events using intensity–duration–area (IDA) curves and Chicago design storms (CDS)

Due to more frequent extreme rainfall incidents in recent years, many large cities are considering construction of new drainage systems to cope with rainfall in the order of 100-year events. In such cases, T-year point rainfall events should be supplemented with areal reduction factors (ARF) to avoid overdesign. To facilitate an initial design, a procedure based on using Chicago Design Storms (CDS) in combination with intensity–duration–area (IDA) curves was developed to produce CDS-ARF input rainfall. By means of the time of concentration, a specific instantaneous unit hydrograph (IUH) was obtained for each subcatchment. Combination of CDS-ARF rains and the subcatchment IUHs using convolution integrals was used to produce inflow hydrographs to the drainage system. A sequential design procedure that successively includes subcatchments for the entire drainage system in the downstream direction is implemented and exemplified ensuring a consistent initial design.