Abstract
The pavement stiffness is scarcely used in structural analysis to design the superstructure of bridge. It is reasonable not to consider it in the case of asphalt concrete pavement over concrete deck because the pavement stiffness compared with the concrete deck plate can be ignored. However, sometimes, the pavement materials have a similar amount of elastic modulus to concrete and are applied to the orthotropic steel deck plate which has relatively less stiffness compared with the concrete deck plate. In this paper, the steel plate deck of a real bridge project was analyzed by considering the pavement stiffness by linear elastic FEM. It was assumed that a perfect bond between the steel plate deck and the pavement exited. The results indicated that the structural behavior of the orthotropic steel deck plate can be estimated enough to affect the evaluation result of structural capacity in some cases. Therefore, the investigations by experimental tests and more advanced numerical model are indispensible in figuring the design formula for considering the effects of pavement stiffness in the structural analysis of an orthotropic bridge.
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