Lateral ultimate behavior of prestressed concrete box girder bridges

프리스트레스트 콘크리트 박스거더의 횡방향 극한거동 실험 연구

The concrete box girder members are extensively used as a superstructure in bridge construction. The load carrying capacity of concrete box girders in lateral direction is generally influenced by the sizes of haunch and web. The internal upper decks are restrained by the webs and exhibit strength enhancement due to the development of aching action. The current codes do not have generally consider the arching action of deck slab in the design because of complexity of the behavior. However, there are significant benefits in utilizing the effects of arching action in the design of concrete members. The main objective of this paper is to propose a rational method to predict the ultimate load of deck slab by considering various haunch sizes and web restraint effect of concrete box girder bridges. To this end, a comprehensive experimental program has been set up and seven large-scale concrete box girders have been tested. A transverse analysis model of concrete box girders with haunches is proposed and compared with test data. The results of present study indicate that the ultimate strength is significantly affected by haunch dimension. The increase of strength due to concrete arcing action is reduced with an increase of prestressing steel ratio in laterally prestressed concrete box girders and increases with a larger haunch dimension. The proposed theory allows more realistic prediction of lateral ultimate strength for rational design of actual concrete box girder bridges.