Influence of post-pouring joint on long-term performance of steel-concrete composite beam

The concrete bridge decks are usually precast and in-situ assembled with steel girders with post-pouring joint in the construction practice of super-wide steel-concrete composite beam. But the difference of concrete age between the precast slabs and the post-pouring joint has been not yet considered for the long-term performance analysis of this kind composite beam. A simply supported precast-assembled T-shaped beam was taken as an example to analyze the long-term performance of steel-concrete composite beam with post-pouring joint. Based on the deformation coordination conditions of the old-new concrete deck and steel girder, a theoretical model for the long-term behavior of precast-assembled composite beam is proposed in this paper according to age-adjusted effective modulus method. Then, the feasibility of the proposed model is verified by the available test data from the Gilbert's composite beams. Parametric studies were preformed to evaluate the influences of the cross-sectional area ratio of the post-pouring joint to the whole bridge deck, as well as the difference of concrete age between the precast slabs and the post-pouring joint, on the long-term performance of the composite beam. The results indicate that the traditional method without considering the age difference would seriously underestimate the effect of creep and shrinkage of concrete bridge decks. The concrete age difference between the precast slabs and the post-pouring joint should be demonstrated for the life cycle design and long-term performance analysis of precast-assembled steel-concrete composite beams.