• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.61 no.1
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• pp.117-124
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• 2017

Load testing is one of the important tests to determine if the structural elements can be used at the intended locations for which they have been designed. It is nothing but gradually applying the loads and measuring the deflections and other parameters. It is usually carried out to determine the behaviour of the system under service/ultimate loads. It helps to identify the maximum load that the structural element can withstand without much deflection/deformation. It will also help find out which part of the element causes failure first. The load-deflection behaviour of the road bridge girder has been studied by carrying out the load test after simulating the field conditions to the extent possible. The actual vertical displacement of the beam at mid span due to the imposed load was compared with the theoretical deflection of the beam. Further, the recovery of deflection at mid span was also observed on removal of the test load. Finally, the beam was checked for any cracks to assert if the beam was capable of carrying the intended live loads and that it could be used with confidence.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.259-272
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• 2001

The impact behavior of a multigirder concrete bridge under single and multiple moving vehicles is studied based on correlated road surface characteristics. The bridge structure is modeled as grillage beam system. A 3D nonlinear vehicle model with eleven degrees of freedom is utilized according to the HS20-44 truck design loading in the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) specifications. A triangle correlation model is introduced to generate four classes of longitudinal road surface roughness as multi-correlated random processes along deck transverse direction. On the basis of a correlation length of approximately half the bridge width, the upper limits of impact factors obtained under confidence level of 95 percent and side-by-side three-truck loading provide probability-based evidence for the evaluation of AASHTO specifications. The analytical results indicate that a better transverse correlation among road surface roughness generally leads to slightly higher impact factors. Suggestions are made for the routine maintenance of this type of highway bridges.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.40 no.1
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• pp.69-76
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• 2020

Bridges which are components of road network consume large amounts of resources such as concrete and steel materials, which have large environmental impacts during construction. This causes a great environmental burden. In order to reduce the environmental impact caused by the construction of the bridge, the environmental impact should be reviewed based on reasonable data in the early design stage. The purpose of this study is to provide basic data for LCA-based environmental impact assessment in the process of selecting bridge type in the early design stage. For this purpose, design data for four types of PSC bridges (general PSC girder, IPC girder, e-Beam, DR girder) were collected and LCA was performed to analyze the basic unit value and impact factors of environmental load. The results of the analysis showed that the environmental impact of IPC girder was the smallest, and the environmental impact of e-Beam was 133.7% higher than that of IPC girder. In addition, concrete, reinforcement, PC strand, square timber, sheath pipe, and steel plate were derived as the main factors that generate 98.5% of the overall environmental impact of PSC girder.

• Journal of the Korea institute for structural maintenance and inspection
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• v.4 no.4
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• pp.211-218
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• 2000

Many bridges are severely damaged by the overloaded heavy vehicle and the trend will become more serious because the traffic volume is continuously increasing. Currently, the vehicles with gross weights over 40 tonf or axle weight over 10 tonf are not allowed on the public road. However, this regulation is not based on a systematic study on the bridge capacity and assumed to be much too conservative depending on the vehicle types and bridge types. In this study, the permit weights of heavy vehicles of diverse axle spacings and axle load distribution are calculated considering the structural characteristics of bridge superstructures. In order to consider the various load effects of heavy weight vehicle crossings, three conditions are considered in the calculation of permit vehicle load. From the results, the permit vehicle weights of the simple girder bridges are calculated.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.10 no.8
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• pp.2062-2067
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• 2009

During a construction of a road, a temporary bridge is often connected to a existing bridge. In this case, a fatigue stability problem, which was not considered in the design of the bridge, can be occurred in the main girder of the existing bridge due to the vehicle load direction change. In this study, the fatigue stability of the main girder and cantilever slab of the bridge was tested with the allowable fatigue stress of the design specifications of the road bridge. The big stress change was occurred at 55m away from the support, and the middle of the span. Furthermore, the excess of the allowable fatigue stress of the design specifications of the road bridge was confirmed at the cross section. The bridge after the reinforcement was tested for the fatigue stability, and it was confirmed that the bridge is safe.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.23 no.5
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• pp.329-334
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• 2019

Traffic flow capacity of some old road bridges is insufficient due to limited deck width. In such cases bridge deck widening is a common solution. For multi-girder reinforced concrete (RC) bridges it is possible to add steel-concrete composite girders as the new outermost girders. The deck widening may be combined with bridge strengthening thanks to thickening of the existing deck slab. Joint action of the existing and the added parts of such bridge span must be ensured. It refers especially to the horizontal plane at the interface of the existing slab and the added concrete layer as well as to the vertical planes at the external surfaces of the initially outermost girders where the added girders are connected to the existing bridge span. Since the distribution of the added concrete is non-uniform in the span cross-section the structure is particularly sensitive to the added concrete shrinkage. The shrinkage induces shear forces in the aforementioned planes. Widening of a 12 m long RC multi-girder bridge span is numerically analysed to assess the influence of the added concrete shrinkage. The analysis results show that: a) in the vertical plane of the connection of the added and the existing deck slab the longitudinal shear due to the shrinkage of the added concrete is comparable with the effect of live load, b) it is necessary to provide appropriate longitudinal reinforcement in the deck slab over the added girders due to tension induced by the shrinkage of the added concrete.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.9 no.6
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• pp.1153-1179
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• 2015

This paper focuses on presenting modeling considerations and insight into the performance of typical straight, curved, and skewed box-girder bridges in California which form the bulk of the bridge inventory in the state. Three case study bridges are chosen: Meloland Road Overpass, Northwest Connector of Interstate 10/215 Interchange, and Painter Street Overpass, having straight, curved, and skewed superstructures, respectively. The efficacy of nonlinear dynamic analysis is established by comparing the response from analytical models to the recorded strong motion data. Finally insights are provided on the component behavioral characteristics and shift in vulnerability for each of the bridge types considered.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.50 no.4
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• pp.501-524
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• 2014

This paper presents a type of composite box girder with corrugated webs and concrete filled steel tube slab to overcome cracking on the web and reduce self-weight. Utilizing corrugated steel web improves the efficiency of prestressing introduced into the top and bottom slabs due to the accordion effect. In order to understand the loading capacity of such new composite structure, experimental and numerical analyses were conducted. A full-scale model was loaded monotonically to investigate the deflection, strain distribution, loading capacity and stiffness during the whole process. The experimental results show that test specimen has enough loading capacity and ductility. Based on experimental works, a finite element (FE) model was established. The load-displacement curves and stress distribution predicted by FE model agree well with that obtained from experiments, which demonstrates the accuracy of proposed FE model. Moreover, simplified theoretical analysis was conducted depending on the assumptions which were confirmed by the experimental and numerical results. The simplified analysis results are identical with the tested and numerical results, which indicate that simplified analytical model can be used to predict the loading capacity of such composite girder accurately. All the findings of present study may provide reference for the application of such structure in bridge construction.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.23 no.6
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• pp.485-503
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• 2016

To investigate the nonlinear aerostatic stability of the Hutong cable-stayed rail-cum-road bridge with ultra-kilometer main span, a FEM bridge model is established. The tri-component wind loads and geometric nonlinearity are taken into consideration and discussed for the influence of nonlinear parameters and factors on bridge resistant capacity of aerostatic instability. The results show that the effect of initial wind attack-angle is significant for the aerostatic stability analysis of the bridge. The geometric nonlinearities of the bridge are of considerable importance in the analysis, especially the effect of cable sag. The instable mechanism of the Hutong Bridge with a steel truss girder is the spatial combination of vertical bending and torsion with large lateral bending displacement. The design wind velocity is much lower than the static instability wind velocity, and the structural aerostatic resistance capacity can meet the requirement.

• Proceedings of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute Conference
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• 1997.04a
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• pp.185-191
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• 1997

The study presents the linear dynamic analysis of bridges under vehicular movement to examine the performance characteristics due to the various structural and loading conditions. The road surface roughness and bridge-vehicle interactions are considered. The road surface profiles for the approaching roadway and bridge decks are generated from power spectral density functions for different road roughness conditions. A new filtering method using the wheel trace is proposed to obtain the more rational bridge-vehicle interactions from the randomly generated road surface. The dynamic responses of various bridges designed according to current design practice are examined, in which important structural parameters(such as span length, girder spacing, etc.) are considering systematically. In addition, the traffic conditions of multi-truck traveling either consecutively on the same lane or side-by-side on the adjacent lanes are also evaluated.