• Title/Summary/Keyword: Concrete bridges

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Design and modelling of pre-cast steel-concrete composites for resilient railway track slabs

  • Mirza, Olivia;Kaewunruen, Sakdirat;Kwok, Kenny;Griffin, Dane W.P.
    • Steel and Composite Structures
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    • v.22 no.3
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    • pp.537-565
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    • 2016
  • Australian railway networks possess a large amount of aging timber components and need to replace them in excess of 280 thousands $m^3$ per year. The relatively high turnover of timber sleepers (crossties in a plain track), bearers (skeleton ties in a turnout), and transoms (bridge cross beams) is responsible for producing greenhouse gas emissions 6 times greater than an equivalent reinforced concrete counterparts. This paper presents an innovative solution for the replacement of aging timber transoms installed on existing railway bridges along with the incorporation of a continuous walkway platform, which is proven to provide environmental, safety and financial benefits. Recent developments for alternative composite materials to replace timber components in railway infrastructure construction and maintenance demonstrate some compatibility issues with track stiffness as well as structural and geometrical track systems. Structural concrete are generally used for new railway bridges where the comparatively thicker and heavier fixed slab track systems can be accommodated. This study firstly demonstrates a novel and resilient alterative by incorporating steel-concrete composite slab theory and combines the capabilities of being precast and modulated, in order to reduce the depth, weight and required installation time relative to conventional concrete direct-fixation track slab systems. Clear benefits of the new steel-concrete composites are the maintainability and constructability, especially for existing railway bridges (or brown fields). Critical considerations in the design and finite element modelling for performance benchmarking of composite structures and their failure modes are highlighted in this paper, altogether with risks, compatibilities and compliances.

Seismic analysis of bridges based on stress-dependent damping

  • Su, Li;Wang, Yuanfeng;Li, Pengfei;Mei, Shengqi;Guo, Kun
    • Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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    • v.62 no.3
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    • pp.281-289
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    • 2017
  • Damping value has considerable influence on the dynamic and seismic behaviors of bridges. However, currently the constant damping ratios that are prescribed by most bridge seismic design codes can't truly represent the complicated damping character of actual structures. In this paper, a cyclic loading experiment was conducted to study the effect of stress amplitude on material damping of concrete to present an analyzing model of the material damping of concrete. Furthermore, based on the fundamental damping of structure measured under ambient vibration, combined with the presented stress-dependent material damping concrete, the seismic response of a bridge pier was calculated. Comparison between the calculated and experiment results verified the validity of the presented damping model. Finally, a modified design and analysis method for bridge was proposed based on stress-dependent damping theory, and a continuous rigid frame bridge was selected as the example to calculate the actual damping values and the dynamic response of the bridge under different earthquake intensities. The calculation results indicated that using the constant damping given by the Chinese seismic design code of bridges would overestimate the energy dissipation capacity of the bridge.

Aftershock Fragility Assessment of Damaged RC Bridge Piers Repaired with CFRP Jackets under Successive Seismic Events (CFRP 교각 재킷 보수를 적용한 손상된 철근콘크리트 교량 교각의 여진 취약도 분석)

  • Jeon, Jong-Su;Lee, Do Hyung
    • Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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    • v.22 no.5
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    • pp.271-280
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    • 2018
  • This paper presents a framework for developing aftershock fragility curves for reinforced concrete bridges initially damaged by mainshocks. The presented aftershock fragility is a damage-dependent fragility function, which is conditioned on an initial damage state resulting from mainshocks. The presented framework can capture the cumulative damage of as-built bridges due to mainshock-aftershock sequences as well as the reduced vulnerability of bridges repaired with CFRP pier jackets. To achieve this goal, the numerical model of column jackets is firstly presented and then validated using existing experimental data available in literature. A four-span concrete box-girder bridge is selected as a case study to examine the application of the presented framework. The aftershock fragility curves are derived using response data from back-to-back nonlinear dynamic analyses under mainshock-aftershock sequences. The aftershock fragility curves for as-built bridge columns are firstly compared with different levels of initial damage state, and then the post-repair effect of FRP pier jacket is examined through the comparison of aftershock fragility curves for as-built and repaired piers.

A Study on Strengthening of PSC Beam by Static Experiment - Glass fiber sheeting and External post-tensioning methods - (PSC 부재의 성능개선기법에 관한 정적 실험 연구 - 유리섬유 부착 공법과 외부 후긴장 보강 공법 -)

  • Kim, Hyun-Ho;Song, Jae-Pil;Kim, Ki-Bong;Chung, Young-Soo
    • Journal of the Korea institute for structural maintenance and inspection
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    • v.7 no.1
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    • pp.157-163
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    • 2003
  • Recently, the number of Prestressed Concrete(PSC) bridges needed repair and retrofit because of the increase of heavy traffic loads and aging of concrete materials. But there are a few related researches about strengthening PSC bridges. In this study, the practicability of strengthening methods for PSC beam were studied by the static experimental method. PSC beams in length of 6m were made with concrete slabs. Glass fiber sheeting and external post-tensioning methods were used for strengthening PSC beams. Some beams were strengthened after cracks to investigate the applicability for cracked bridges. As a result, there strengthening methods were efficient at increasing the cracking loads and the failure load, to decrease deflection and prevent cracks. In the case of using glass fiber retrofit methods, it should be careful in the anchorage problems for preventing the bonding failure.

Computation of design forces and deflection in skew-curved box-girder bridges

  • Agarwal, Preeti;Pal, Priyaranjan;Mehta, Pradeep Kumar
    • Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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    • v.78 no.3
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    • pp.255-267
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    • 2021
  • The analysis of simply supported single-cell skew-curved reinforced concrete (RC) box-girder bridges is carried out using a finite element based CsiBridge software. The behaviour of skew-curved box-girder bridges can not be anticipated simply by superimposing the individual effects of skewness and curvature, so it becomes important to examine the behaviour of such bridges considering the combined effects of skewness and curvature. A comprehensive parametric study is performed wherein the combined influence of the skew and curve angles is considered to determine the maximum bending moment, maximum shear force, maximum torsional moment and maximum vertical deflection of the bridge girders. The skew angle is varied from 0° to 60° at an interval of 10°, and the curve angle is varied from 0° to 60° at an interval of 12°. The scantly available literature on such bridges focuses mainly on the analysis of skew-curved bridges under dead and point loads. But, the effects of actual loadings may be different, thus, it is considered in the present study. It is found that the performance of these bridges having more curvature can be improved by introducing the skewness. Finally, several equations are deduced in the non-dimensional form for estimating the forces and deflection in the girders of simply supported skew-curved RC box-girder bridges, based upon the results of the straight one. The developed equations may be helpful to the designers in proportioning, analysing, and designing such bridges, as the correlation coefficient is about 0.99.

Computer-Aided Optimization of Preflex Bridges (프리플렉스교의 전산화 최적설계)

  • 조효남;이웅세;박정배
    • Proceedings of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute Conference
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    • 1993.04a
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    • pp.125-133
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    • 1993
  • Preflex composit girder is intended for a better use on both steel and concrete by introducting prestress into the lower flange concrete with preflection. In Korea, recently preflex bridges are widely used especially for urban construction but the design method depends on the conventional ASD(Allowable Stress Design). This paper suggests an optimization model for the design of preflex composite bridges based on LIFD(Load Resistance Factor Design). The optimization algorithm adopted for the NLP model proposed in the paper is the FTM(Flexible Tolerance Method) which is very efficient for the approximate continuous optimization. For the discrete optimum results, a pesudo discrete optimization is used for the economical round-up to the available dimensions. The economic effectiveness of optimum design based on the LRFD method is investigation by comparing the results with those of the ASD method. Based on applications to the actual design examples, it may be concluded that the optimization model suggested in the paper provides economical but reliable design. And the suggested in the paper provides economical but reliable design. And the computer code for the automatic optimum design of preflex bridges developed in the paper for a CAD system may be successfully used in practice.

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Evaluation of Proper Level of the Longitudinal Prestress for the Precast Deck System of Railway Bridges (철도교용 프리캐스트 바닥판의 적정한 종방향 프리스트레스 수준의 산정)

  • Jang Sung-Wook;Youn Seok-Goo;Jeon Se-Jin;Kim Young-Jin;Hyung Tai-Kyung
    • Proceedings of the KSR Conference
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    • 2005.11a
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    • pp.223-228
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    • 2005
  • Precast concrete deck has many advantages comparing with the in-situ concrete deck, and has been successfully applied to replacement of the deteriorated decks and to the newly constructed highway bridges in domestic region. In order to apply the precast decks into the railway bridges, however, differences of the load characteristics between the highway and the railway should be properly taken into account including the train load, longitudinal force of the continuous welded rail. acceleration or braking force, temperature change and shrinkage. Proper level of the longitudinal prestress of the tendons that can ensure integrity of the transverse joints in the deck system is of a primary importance. To this aim, the longitudinal tensile stresses induced by the design loads are derived using three-dimensional finite element analyses, design codes and theoretical equations for the frequently adopted PSC composite girder railway bridge. The estimated proper prestress level to counteract those tensile stresses is over 2.4 MPa, which is similar to the case of the highway bridges.

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Performance of bridge structures under heavy goods vehicle impact

  • Zhao, Wuchao;Qian, Jiang;Wang, Juan
    • Computers and Concrete
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    • v.22 no.6
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    • pp.515-525
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    • 2018
  • This paper presents a numerical study on the performance of reinforced concrete (RC) bridge structures subjected to heavy goods vehicle (HGV) collision. The objectives of this study are to investigate the dynamic response and failure modes of different types of bridges under impact loading as well as to give an insight into the simplified methods for modeling bridge structures. For this purpose, detailed finite-element models of HGV and bridges are established and verified against the full-scale collision experiment and a recent traffic accident. An intensive parametric study with the consideration of vehicle weight, vehicle velocity, structural type, simplified methods for modeling bridges is conducted; then the failure mode, impact force, deformation and internal force distribution of the validated bridge models are discussed. It is observed that the structural type has a significant effect on the force-transferring mechanism, failure mode and dynamic response of bridge structures, thus it should be considered in the anti-impact design of bridge structures. The impact force of HGV is mainly determined by the impact weight, impact velocity and contact interface, rather than the simplification of the superstructure. Furthermore, to reduce the modeling and computing cost, it is suggested to utilize the simplified bridge model considering the inertial effect of the superstructure to evaluate the structural impact behavior within a reasonable precision range.