• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.28 no.1A
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• pp.1-13
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• 2008

The web of a horizontally curved plate girder bridge is, in general, subject to not only longitudinal flexural in-plane stress but also out-of-plane bending stress. Therefore, the induced stresses in the fillet welded joints at the intersection of the web and flange plates in the curved plate girder bridge can be considerably high, and the welded joints of gusset plates connecting the main girder to the floor beams or sway bracings can be subject to much more severe situation than those in the ordinary straight plate girder bridge. In order to investigate the cause of fatigue crack occurred in a curved girder bridge that has been served in about 23 years, in this study, field load tests have been performed to obtain the stress characteristics at the welded joint under the real traffic flow. Using the test results, we have investigated the causes of the occurrence of various fatigue cracks and have estimated the fatigue lives for the cracks. In addition, the characteristics of structural behavior at welded joint of the curved girder bridge have been examined by comparing the FE analysis and the field test result.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.297-315
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• 2010

This paper is concerned with free vibration characteristics and natural frequency of horizontally curved composite plate girder bridges. Three-dimensional finite element models are developed for the girders using the software package LUSAS and analyses carried out on the models. The validity of the finite element models is first established through comparison with the corresponding results published by other researchers. Studies are then carried out to investigate the effects of total number of girders, number of cross-frames and curvature on the free vibration response of horizontally curved composite plate girder bridges. The results confirm the fact that bending modes are always coupled with torsional modes for horizontally curved bridge girder systems. The results show that the first bending mode is influenced by composite action between the concrete deck and steel beam at low subtended angle but, on the girders with larger subtended angle at the centre of curvature such influence is non-existence. The increase in the number of girders results in higher natural frequency but at a decreasing rate. The in-plane modes viz. longitudinal and arching modes are significantly influenced by composite action and number of girders. If no composite action is taken into account the number of girders has no significant effect for the in-plane modes.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.28 no.3A
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• pp.367-373
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• 2008

In the design of horizontally curved plate girder web panels, it is required to evaluate accurately the elastic buckling strength under pure shear. Currently, elastic shear buckling coefficients of curved web panels stiffened by transverse intermediate stiffeners are determined by assuming conservatively that straight web panels without curvature are simply supported at the juncture between the flange and web. However, depending upon the geometry and the properties of the curved plate girder, the elastically restrained support may behave rather closer to a fixed support. The buckling strength of curved girder web is much greater (maximum 38%) than that of a straight girder calculated under the assumption that all four edges are simply supported in Lee and Yoo (1999). In the present study, a series of numerical analyses based on a 3D finite element modeling is carried out to investigate the effects of geometric parameters on both the boundary condition at the juncture and the horizontal curvature of web panel, and the resulting data are quantified in a simple design equation.

• Proceedings of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute Conference
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• 2008.04a
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• pp.50-55
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• 2008

In order to investigate and estimate the cause of fatigue crack occurred to curved girder bridge that is used during 20 years, in this study, filed tests to obtain the characteristic of stress hysteresis were performed under the real traffic flows. From these test results, we analyzed the cause of fatigue crack for various fatigue crack patterns. Also, the characteristic of structural behavior for the curved girder bridge were examined from the FE analysis. In addition, to retrofit various fatigue cracks occurred in the bridge, FE analyses considering the characteristics of crack patterns were performed and retrofitting methods were suggested.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.52 no.2
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• pp.221-238
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• 2014

A four-noded curved shell finite element for the geometrically non-linear analysis of beams curved in plan is introduced. The structure is conceived as a sequence of macro-elements (ME) having the form of transversal segments of identical topology where each slice is formed using a number of the curved shell elements which have 7 degrees of freedom (DOF) per node. A curved box-girder beam example is modelled using various meshes and linear analysis results are compared to the solutions of a well-known computer program SAP2000. Linear and non-linear analyses of the beam under increasing uniformly distributed loads are also carried out. In addition to box-girder beams, the proposed element can also be used in modelling open-section beams with curved or straight axes and circular plates under radial compression. Buckling loads of a circular plate example are obtained for coarse and successively refined meshes and results are compared with each other. The advantage of this element is that curved systems can be realistically modelled and satisfactory results can be obtained even by using coarse meshes.

• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.95-104
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• 2004

The horizontally curved bridges have been used to connect bridges and roads. Until 1960s, they had been constructed with straight girders, called 'kinked girder bridges', which requires much cost and time-consuming construction of substructure. In case of using curved girders, practiced later, they would have many advantages such as reduction in the total construction cost and time, and ability to make aesthetic bridges. In designing plate girder bridges, it is necessary to determine the spacings between vertical stiffeners and the allowable shear stresses based on shear buckling capacity because it plays a key role in preventing the premature local shear buckling. Compared with the straight web, the critical shear buckling stresses of curved web panels vary with both aspect ratio and curvature coefficient. For designing curved web panels, a simplified formula and shear buckling coefficients were proposed by parametric models with F.E.M in this study.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.16 no.10
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• pp.6504-6510
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• 2015

Horizontally curved I-girders are subjected to not only bending moments but also torsional moments. The torsional moment of the plate girder is addition of St. Venant torsion and non-uniform torsion. In the flange of I-shaped plate girder, a kind of open-section, the normal stresses is not distributed uniformly due to the non-uniform torsion. Because of that, one of compression flange tip can be yielded faster than the flange of general straight girder. In other words, the flange local buckling strength is decreased when the girder has initial curvature. In this paper, the numerical analysis is conducted to investigate the average stresses in flange for curved girders. The subtended angle and slenderness ratio are taken as parameters.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.26 no.4A
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• pp.727-734
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• 2006

Although a limited number of experimental investigations and finite element analyses revealed that a curved web panel in practical design has a considerable reserve strength after the elastic buckling as a straight girder web panel, the current Guide Specifications for Horizontally Curved Steel Girder Highway Bridges (AASHTO, 2003) do not consider the postbuckling strength in the ultimate shear strength due to lack of a comprehensive study. In this study, the ultimate shear strength behavior of horizontally curved steel web panels was investigated through nonlinear finite element analysis and experimental test. It was found that curved web panels used in practical designs are able to develop the postbuckling strength that is equivalent to that of straight girder web panels having the same dimensional and material properties.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.34 no.6
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• pp.1731-1741
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• 2014

Recently, many overpasses, highway, and advanced transit systems have been constructed to distribute the traffic congestion, thus small size of curved bridges with small curvature such as ramp structures have been increasing. Many of early curved bridges had been constructed by using straight beams with curved slabs, but curved steel beams have replaced them due to the cost, aesthetic and the advantage in building the section form and manipulating the curvature of beams, thereby large portion of curved bridges were applied with steel box girders. However, steel box girder bridges needs comparatively high initial costs and continuous maintenance such as repainting, which is the one of the reason for increasing the cost. Moreover, I-type steel plate girder which is being studied by many researchers recently, seem to have problems in stability due to the low torsional stiffness, resulting from the section characteristics with thin plate used for web and open section forms. Therefore, in recent studies, researchers have proposed curved precast PSC girders with low cost and could secured safety which could replace the curved steel girder type bridges. Hence, this study developed a Smart Mold system to manufacture efficient curved precast PSC girders. And by using this mold system a 40 m 2-girder bridge was constructed for a static flexural test, to evaluate the safety and performance under ultimate load. At the manufacturing stage, each single girder showed problems in the stability due to the torsional moment, but after the girders were connected by cross beams and decks, the bridge successfully distributed the stress, thereby the stability was confirmed. The static loading test results show that the initial crack was observed at 1,400 kN when the design load was 450 kN, and the load at the allowable deflection by code was 1,800 kN, which shows that the safety and usability of the curved precast PSC bridge manufactured by Smart Mold system is secured.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.30 no.5A
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• pp.407-415
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• 2010

In Korea, more than 90% of the total number of steel bridges built for 40~70 m span length is a steel box-girder bridge type. A steel box-girder bridge is suitable for long span or curved bridges with outstanding flexural and torsional rigidity as well as good constructability and safety. However, a steel box-girder bridge is uneconomical, requiring many secondary members and workmanship such as stiffeners and ribs requiring welding attachments to flanges or webs. Therefore, in US and Japan, a plate girder bridge, which is relatively cheap and easy to construct is generally used. One type of the plate girder bridge is the two- or three-main girder plate bridge, which is a composite plate girder bridge that minimizes the number of required main girders by increasing the distance between the adjacent girders. Also, for the simplification of girder section, the stiffener which requires attachment to the web is not required. The two-main steel girder plate bridge is a representative type of plate girder bridges, which is suitable for bridges with 10 m effective width and has been developed in the early 1960s in France. To ensure greater safety of two- or three-main girder plate bridges, a larger steel section is used in the bridge domestically than in Europe or Japan. Also, the total number of two- or three-main girder plate bridge constructed in Korea is significantly less than the steel box girder bridge due to a lack of designers' familiarity with more complex design detailing of the bridge compare to that of a steel box girder bridge design. In this study, a new construction method called Turn Over method is proposed to minimize the steel section size used in a two- or three-main girder plate bridge by applying prestressing force to the member using confining concrete section's weight to reduce construction cost. Also, a full scale 20 m Turn Over girder specimen and a Turn Over girder bridge specimen were tested to evaluate constructability and structural safety of the members constructed using Turn Over process.