• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.20 no.5
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• pp.67-78
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• 2004

Soil-steel bridges are made of flexible corrugated steel plates buried in the well-compacted granular soil. One kind of possible collapses of these structures could be initiated by shear or tension failure in the soil cover subjected to vehicle loads. Current design codes provide the requirements for the minimum depth of the soil cover to avoid problems associated with soil cover failures. However, these requirements were developed for short span (less than 7.7 m) structures which are made of unstiffened plates of standard corrugation (150$\times$50 m). Numerical analyses were carried out to investigate the behavior of long span soil steel bridges according to thickness of the soil cover. The span of structures were up to 20 m and deep corrugated plates (381$\times$140 m) were used. The analysis showed that the minimum cover depth of 1.5 m could be sufficient to prevent the soil cover failure in the structures with a span exceeding 10 m. Additional analyses were performed to verify the reinforcement effect of the concrete relieving slab which can be a special feature to reduce the live-load effects. Analyses revealed that the bending moment of the conduit wall with a relieving slab was less than 20% of that without a relieving slab in a case of shallow soil cover conditions.

• Journal of the Korean GEO-environmental Society
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• v.7 no.3
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• pp.55-68
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• 2006

This paper studies the moment equations in the 2000 Canadian highway bridge code(CHBDC) for soil-steel box structures, which are applicable to the span less than 8m. Finite element analyses carried out for soil-steel box structures having spans of 3-12m using the deep corrugated steel plates under three construction stages; backfill up to the crown, backfill up to the cover depth, and live loading. The coefficients of moment equations are newly proposed based on the results of numerous finite element analyses considering various design variables, such as span length, soil depth, backfill conditions. The validity of the proposed coefficients in the moment equations of the 2000 CHBDC is investigated by the comparison with the existing coefficients and numerical results of finite element analyses. The comparisons show that the moments of the 2000 CHBDC give good predictions for the span less than 8m, but underestimate for the span greater than 8m, whereas the proposed moments give good estimates of numerical results for the spans of 3-12m.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.26 no.1A
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• pp.133-142
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• 2006

This paper evaluates the moment equations in the 2000 Canadian highway bridge code (CHBDC) for soil-metal box structures, which are applicable to the span less than 8 m. Finite element analyses carried out for soil-metal box structures having spans of 3-12 m using the deep corrugated metal plates under three construction stages; backfill up to the crown, backfill up to the cover depth, and live loading. The coefficients of moment equations are newly proposed based on the results of numerous finite element analyses considering various design variables, such as span length, soil depth, backfill conditions. The validity of the proposed coefficients in the moment equations of the 2000 CHBDC is investigated by the comparison with the existing coefficients and numerical results of finite element analyses. The comparisons show that the moments of the 2000 CHBDC give good predictions for the span less than 8m, but underestimate for the span greater than 8m, whereas the proposed moments give good estimates of numerical results for the spans of 3-12 m. In addition, this study suggests the use of high strength steel to satisfy the requirement of design bending strength for the span greater than 8 m.