Abstract
This paper describes the design, manufacturing process, testing, application, and assessment of capacity-ratings of the first all advanced composites bridge on a public highway system. In order to verify the bridge design prior to the field application, a sub-scale bridge superstructure was built and tested in the laboratory. The field load test results were compared with those of the finite element analysis for the verification of validity. To investigate its in-service performance, field load testing and visual inspections were conducted under an actual service environment. The paper includes the presentation and discussion for advanced composites bridge capacity rating based on the stress modification coefficients obtained from the test results. The test result indicates that the advanced composites bridge has no structural problems and is structurally performing well in-service as expected. Since these composite materials are new to bridge applications, reliable data is not available for their in-service performance. The results may provide a baseline data for future field advanced composites bridge capacity rating assessments and also serve as part of a long-term performance of advanced composites bridge.