Scour is one of the most common reasons for infrastructure failure. Local scour around bridge piers and bridge abutments had been extensively addressed in the past. However, the research on local scour around culverts is still very limited. To fill in this gap, different existing prediction equations are compared in estimating maximum scour depth around different shapes of culverts. It is found that for rectangular culvert culverts, Valentin’s equation (1967) and Kerenyi’s equations (2007) can give the best prediction in the range of the present study. While for circular culverts, Liriano’s equation (1999) and Azamathulla’s equation (2012) can provide better prediction. New equations are proposed to better predict the maximum scour depth considering shape factors. Comparing to experimental work, very limited research can be found in literature on culvert flow simulation. An open source software OpenFOAM is applied to simulate the culvert flow with different scenarios. The model was validated by previous experimental work. It shows that different blockage scenarios have a strong impact to the flow inside the culvert. With blockage intruding into the culvert, the velocity profile changes significantly under same blockage ratios. Under the same intruding length, a larger blockage ratio can produce a larger impact on flow re-distribution. Key words: culvert scour, prediction equations, maximum scour depth, shape factors, OpenFOAM, culvert flow.