• Journal of Korean Society of Steel Construction
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• v.9 no.1 s.30
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• pp.51-63
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• 1997

Highly curved steel-box bridges are usually constructed as ramp structures for the highway interchange and metropolitan elevated highway junction, but a number of these bridges are deteriorated and damaged to a significant degree due to heavy traffic. The main objective of the study is to develop a practical reliability-based assessment of safety and residual load carrying-capacity of existing curved steel-box ramp bridges. In the paper, for the realistic assessment of safety and residual load carrying-capacity of deteriorated and/or damaged curved steel-box bridges, an interactive non-linear limit state model is formulated based on the von Mises's combined stress yield criterion. It is demonstrated that the proposed model is effective for the assessment of reliability-based safety and the evaluation of residual load carrying-capacity of curved steel-box bridges. In addition, this study comparatively shows the applicability of various reliability analysis methods, and suggests a practical and effective one to be used in practice.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.387-410
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• 2008

The fatigue damage accumulation rates of horizontally curved thin walled box-girder bridge have been estimated from vehicle-induced dynamic stress history using rain flow cycle counting method in the time domain approach. The curved box-girder bridge has been numerically modeled using computationally efficient thin walled box-beam finite elements, which take into account the important structural actions like torsional warping, distortion and distortional warping in addition to the conventional displacement and rotational degrees of freedom. Vehicle model includes heave-pitch-roll degrees of freedom with longitudinal and transverse input to the wheels. The bridge deck unevenness, which is taken as inputs to the vehicle wheels, has been assumed to be a realization of homogeneous random process specified by a power spectral density (PSD) function. The linear damage accumulation theory has been applied to calculate fatigue life. The fatigue life estimated by cycle counting method in time domain has been compared with those found by estimating the PSD of response in frequency domain. The frequency domain method uses an analytical expression involving spectral moment characteristics of stress process. The effects of some of the important parameters on fatigue life of the curved box bridge have been studied.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.28 no.1A
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• pp.105-113
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• 2008

Solar radiation induces non-uniform temperature distribution in the bridge structure depending on the shape of the structure and shadows cast on it. Especially in the case of curved steel box girder bridges, non-uniform temperature distribution caused by solar radiation may lead to unusual load effects enough to damage the support or even topple the whole curved bridge structure if not designed properly. At present, it is very difficult to design bridges in relation to solar radiation because it is not known exactly how varying temperature distribution affects bridges; at least not specific enough for adoption in design. Standard regulations related to this matter are likewise not complete. In this study, the thermal behavior of curved steel box girder bridges is analyzed while taking the solar radiation effect into consideration. For the analysis, a method of predicting the 3-dimensional temperature distribution of curved bridges was developed. It uses a theoretical solar radiation energy equation together with a commercial FEM program. The behavior of the curved steel box girder bridges was examined using the developed method, while taking into consideration the diverse range of bridge azimuth angles and radii. This study also provides reference data for the thermal design of curved steel box girder bridges under solar radiation, which can be used to develop design guidelines.

• Proceedings of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute Conference
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• 2005.04a
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• pp.20-27
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• 2005

Solar radiation causes non-uniform temperature distribution in the structure, depending on the shape of the structure and its shadows. Especially in cases of curved steel box girder bridges, non-uniform temperature distribution due to solar radiation can reduce bridge life and serviceability when combined with another load combination. In this study, the method for predicting the temperature distribution of curved bridges developed by Kim et al., was used to predict the non-uniform temperature distribution which served as a basis for structural analysis of 3-D bridge behavior. In order to seek the most unfavorable conditions of solar radiation, observation data from the Korea Meteorological Administration for solar radiation were analyzed. The region of the most high solar radiation condition was selected and its one year variation of the solar radiation data was considered. From this analysis, the most unfavorable solar radiation condition with lower solar altitude and intense solar radiation was selected. Based on the selected solar radiation condition, structural behavior of curved bridges with diverse bridge direction, span length, radius and support conditions are analyzed.

• Proceedings of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute Conference
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• 2002.04a
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• pp.185-191
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• 2002

In this study a 3-dimensional analytical model is developed, which can analyses dynamic responses of curved bridges subject to moving vehicles. A 5-axle semi-trailer is modeled to simulate the actual tire forces that are redistributed by vehicle rolling effect due to the centrifugal force. The 1-span curved bridge with two steel box girders is modeled using the frame elements. The dynamic response characteristics of curved box girder bridges are examined and compared for two different support conditions. One is the case that two shoes are arranged at the outer sides of box girders with larger space between the two shoes and the other is that two shoes at the center of each box girder. In the curved bridges, the dynamic effect of moving vehicles influences the reaction force much more than other responses, such as displacement or stress, especially the upward reaction of inner-radius shoes. It is more advantageous for the reaction considering dynamic effect when shoes are arranged further at the outer sides of box girders than when shoes at the center of each box. The shoes for curved bridges with two-box girder system should be arranged to have larger distance.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Hazard Mitigation
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.9-14
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• 2008

In the case of horizontally curved bridges, the use of curved composite box girder bridges are increased due to its functionality and for aesthetical reason. As it compared with the open section, the steel box girder bridges have advantages to resistant of distortion and corrosion. In practice the grid analysis is conducted by utilizing only the cross beam. Since the stiffness of the concrete slab is not included in the grid analysis, the cross beam is induced the distribution of the live load. In this study the affects of the radius of curvature, the number of diaphragm and cross beam to the load distribution of the curved steel box girder bridge was investigated by applying the finite element method. The results indicate that the curvature of curved bridge had a large affect of the load distribution and as the curvature was increased the load distribution factor was increased. A single diaphragm at the center of girder is important role for the load distribution effects and structural stability, but additional diaphragm did not affect it as much. The affects of the cross beam to the load distribution were investigated and its influence was minor. It can be safely concluded that the addition of cross beam does not aid the purpose of the live load distribution. And the stiffness of concrete slab for the load distribution effects should be concerned in the design of curved steel box girder bridges.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.78 no.2
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• pp.125-134
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• 2021

In this paper, the effects of Tuned Mass dampers (TMDs) on the reduction of the vertical vibrations of a real horizontally curved steel box-girder bridge due to different traffic loads are numerically investigated. The performance of TMDs to reduce the bridge vibrations can be affected by the parameters such as dynamic characteristics of TMDs, the location of TMDs, the speed and weight of vehicles. In the first part of this study, the effects of mass ratio, damping percentage, frequency ratio, and location of TMDs on the performance of TMDs to decrease vertical vibrations of different sections of bridge deck are evaluated. In the second part, the performance of TMD is investigated for different speeds and weights of traffic loads. Results show that the mass ratio of TMDs is the more effective parameter in reducing imposed vertical vibration in comparison with the damping ratio. Furthermore, it is found that TMD is very sensitive to its tuned frequency, i.e., with a little deviation from a suitable frequency, the expected performance of TMD significantly decreased. TMDs have a positive and considerable performance at certain vehicle speeds and this performance declines when the weight of traffic loads is increased. Besides, the results reveal that the highest impact of TMD on the reduction of the vertical vibrations is when free vibrations occur for the bridge deck. In that case, maximum reductions of 24% and 59% are reported in the vertical acceleration of the bridge deck for the forced and free vibration amplitudes, respectively. The maximum reduction of 13% is also obtained for the maximum displacement of the bridge deck. The results are mainly related to the resonance condition.

• International Journal of Concrete Structures and Materials
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• v.10 no.sup3
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• pp.1-17
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• 2016

Recently, advanced transit systems are being constructed to reduce traffic congestions in metropolitan areas. For these projects, curved bridges with various curvatures are required. Many curved bridges in the past were constructed using aesthetically unpleasant straight beams with curved slabs or expensive curved steel box girders with curved slabs. Therefore, many recent studies have been performed to develop less expensive and very safe precast prestressed concrete (PSC) curved girder. One method of reducing the construction cost of a PSC curved girder is to use a reusable formwork that can easily be adjusted to change the curvature and length of a girder. A reusable and curvature/dimension adjustable formwork called Multi-tasking formwork is developed for constructing efficient precast PSC curved girders. With the Multi-tasking formwork, two 40 m precast PSC box girders with different curvatures were constructed to build a two-girder curved bridge for a static flexural test to evaluate its safety and serviceability performance. The static flexural test results showed that the initial cracking load was 1400 kN, exceeding the design cracking load of 450 kN. Also, the code allowed deflection of 50 mm occurred at a load of 1800 kN, verifying the safety and serviceability of the precast PSC curved bridge constructed using the multi-tasking formwork.

• Journal of Korean Society of Steel Construction
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.163-176
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• 2001

In this paper, the stress resultants and displacements of simply supported curved girder based on the flexural torsional theory considering torsional warping effects are analyzed. And elastic equations of continuous curved girder are obtained by using energy method. Also, bending moment warping torsional moment diagram, pure torsional moment diagram, shearing force diagram, and deflection diagram of continuos curved girder bridge subjecting to vertical loads and uniform loads are presented.

• Journal of Korean Society of Steel Construction
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• v.14 no.6
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• pp.711-720
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• 2002

A 3-D numerical model, which could demonstrate the static and dynamic responses of a curved bridge more precisely with the moving vehicles, was developed The dynamic response induced by the centrifugal rolling motion of vehicle was identified according to the variations of the partial grade and the curvature of the slab. Dynamic characteristics of the curved bridge with the moving vehicle were analyzed under the condition of support types and two different support systems. Parametric studies were conducted to compare the efficiency of load distribution in the curved bridge. In general, while the vehicle was crossing the curved bridge, negative reaction occurred in the inside of the girder. The final result showed that the support system located outside the girder was more advantageous than other systems, and the characteristics of load distributions differed from the others in the various conditions of support systems.