• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.28 no.3A
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• pp.305-313
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• 2008

A reliability based calibration of dynamic load allowance (DLA) of highway bridge is performed by numerical dynamic analysis of various types of bridges taking into account of the road surface roughness and bridge-vehicle interaction. A total of 10 simply supported bridges with three girder types in the form of prestressed concrete girder, steel plate girder, and steel box girder is analyzed. The cross sections recommended in "The Standardized Design of Highway Bridge Superstructure" by the Korean Ministry of Construction are used for the prestressed concrete girder bridges and steel plate girder bridges while the box girder bridges are designed by the LRFD method. Ten sets of road surface roughness for each bridge are generated from power spectral density (PSD) function by assuming the roadway as "Average Road". A three dimensionally modeled 5-axle tractor-trailer with its gross weight the same as that of DB-24 design truck is used in the dynamic analysis. For the finite element modeling of superstructure, beam elements for the main girder, shell elements for concrete deck, and rigid links between main girder and concrete deck are used. The statistical mean and coefficient of variation of DLA are obtained from a total of 100 DLA results for 10 different bridges with each having 10 sets of road surface roughness. Applying the DLA statistics obtained, the DLA is finally calibrated in a reliability based LRFD format by using the formula developed in the calibration of OHBDC code.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.33-42
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• 1981

Current standard code for R.C. design consists of two conventional design parts, so called WSD and USD, which are based on ACI 318-63 and 318-71 code provisions. The safety factors of our WSD and USD design criteria which are taken primarily from ACI 318-63 code are considered to be not appropriate compared to out country's design and construction practices. Furthermore, even the ACI safety factors are not determined from probabilistic study but merely from experiences and practices. This study investigates the safety level of R.C. flexural members designed by the current WSD safety provisions based on Second Moment Reliability theory, and proposes a rational but efficient way of determining the nominal safety factors and the associated flexural allowable stresses of steel bars and concretes in order to provide a consistent level of target reliability. Cornell's Mean First-Order Second Moment Method formulae by a log normal transformation of resistance and load output variables are adopted as the reliability analysis method for this study. The compressive allowable stress formulae are derived by a unique approach in which the balanced steel ratios of the resulting design are chosen to be the corresponding under-reinforced sections designed by strength design method with an optimum reinforcing ratio. The target reliability index for the safety provisions are considered to be ${\beta}=4$ that is well suited for our level of construction and design practices. From a series of numerical applications to investigate the safety and reliability of R.C. flexural members designed by current WSD code, it has been found that the design based on WSD provision results in uneconomical design because of unusual and inconsistent reliability. A rational set of reliability based safety factors and allowable stress of steel bars and concrete for flexural members is proposed by providing the appropriate target reliability ${\beta}=4$.