• Journal of the Korea institute for structural maintenance and inspection
• /
• v.14 no.2
• /
• pp.176-183
• /
• 2010

In the steel deck box girder bridges, the deck is composed of deck plate, longitudinal and lateral direction ribs. The bridge, that is considered in this study, has been used for about 40 years and, recently, several cracks were found in the connection area of U-ribs. Further, additional cracks were occurred after some lateral rib plates and longitudinal frames were attached for the purpose of reinforcement. Therefore, the connection method in the U-ribs reinforcement was changed from the bolting to the weldment to get rid of stress concentration and further cracking. In this study, the stress in the U-ribs connection was analysed numerically and variable amplitude stress for the real traffic loads was measured experimentally before and after the frame reinforcement. Finally, the effects of reinforcement method were investigated and discussed.

• International journal of steel structures
• /
• v.18 no.5
• /
• pp.1617-1630
• /
• 2018

The crucial differences between conventional rail with split-type connectors and continuous welded rails are axial stress in the longitudinal direction and stability, as well as other issues generated under the influence of loading effects. Longitudinal stresses generated in continuously welded rails on railway bridges are strongly influenced by the nonlinear behavior of the supporting system comprising sleepers and ballasts. Thus, the track structure interaction cannot be neglected. The rail-support system mentioned above has properties of non-uniform material distribution and uncertainty of construction quality. The linear elastic hypothesis therefore cannot correctly evaluate the stress distribution within the rails. The aim of this study is to apply the nonlinear finite element method using the nonlinear coupling interface between the track and structural model and to illustrate the welded rail behavior under the loading effect and uncertain factors of the ballast. Numerical results of nonlinear finite analysis with a three-dimensional solid and frame element model are presented for a typical track-bridge system. A composite plate girder, modeled by solid and shell elements, is also analyzed to consider the behavior of the welded rail. The analysis result showed buckling under the independent calculations of load cases, including 'temperature change', 'bending of the supporting structure', and 'braking' of the railway vehicle. A parametric study of the load combination method and the loading sequence is also included in this analysis.

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

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
• /
• v.26 no.1A
• /
• pp.75-89
• /
• 2006

This paper presents a practical and realistic Life-Cycle Cost (LCC) optimum design methodology of steel bridges considering time effect of bridge reliability under environmental stressors such as corrosion and heavy truck traffics. The LCC functions considered in the LCC optimization consist of initial cost, expected life-cycle maintenance cost and expected life-cycle rehabilitation costs including repair/replacement costs, loss of contents or fatality and injury losses, road user costs, and indirect socio-economic losses. For the assessment of the life-cycle rehabilitation costs, the annual probability of failure which depends upon the prior and updated load and resistance histories should be accounted for. For the purpose, Nowak live load model and a modified corrosion propagation model considering corrosion initiation, corrosion rate, and repainting effect are adopted in this study. The proposed methodology is applied to the LCC optimum design problem of an actual steel box girder bridge with 3 continuous spans (40 m+50 m+40 m=130 m), and various sensitivity analyses of types of steel, local corrosion environments, average daily traffic volume, and discount rates are performed to investigate the effects of various design parameters and conditions on the LCC-effectiveness. From the numerical investigation, it has been observed that local corrosion environments and the number of truck traffics significantly influence the LCC-effective optimum design of steel bridges, and thus realized that these conditions should be considered as crucial parameters for the optimum LCC-effective design.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
• /
• v.22 no.3
• /
• pp.36-43
• /
• 2021

Because bridges are major national infrastructure, regular safety inspections or diagnoses for bridges have been conducted in accordance with the "Special Act on the Safety and Maintenance of Facilities." Accordingly, the condition and safety assessments of the bridge are conducted to derive the condition and safety rating, respectively. A lower result is determined to be the safety grade of the bridge. In this study, the relationship between the condition rating and safety rating, which are the core of the bridge safety grade, was analyzed by the representative superstructure types of bridges, such as RC slab, PSCI girder, Steel box girder, Rhamen, and Preflex girder, to identify the correlation status and range between each rating. A reasonable improvement direction for establishing existing maintenance policies was suggested by proposing an alternative plan to change the proper implementation cycle of the inspection and diagnosis of bridge superstructure types. As a result of the research, it is necessary to adjust the inspection and diagnosis cycle according to the superstructure type and safety grade. In addition, maintenance policies need to be improved through detailed research on more diverse bridge types in the future.

• Proceedings of the KSR Conference
• /
• 2011.05a
• /
• pp.707-716
• /
• 2011

It has been applied using cranes or insertion methods to install heavy structures to strengthen existing railway bridges. These methods are uneconomical because of two reasons. The first one is it is required to construct approach roads for heavy equipment and/or working yard. The second one is the electric lines shall be cutoff during construction. Both require additional construction cost and duration. In this study, new transport equipment was developed which can be applied to heavy structures up to 100 ton. Using this method, the heavy structure can be loaded into the new transport equipment at working yard and transported to the working site. This method can be applied, but not limited to railway bridge or roadbed rehabilitation. It was found that the precious construction can be achieved to install heavy structure using this method. The experimental construction to make non-ballast girder bridge composite with new pc deck slab using this method was carried out for Jewon bridge. The example bridge is in extreme condition because it locates above national road #38 within extreme transition curve and has 10 ‰ slope and skew. The experimental construction results were satisfactory both for safety and construction precision.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
• /
• v.23 no.2
• /
• pp.14-20
• /
• 2008

The objective of this study is to examine fatigue strength of the welded details. In order to attain the goal of this study, the bending fatigue tests was performed for four kinds of welded details used in steel bridges, such as in-plane gusset, out-of-plane gusset, cruciform, and cover plate. The effect of the length of welded attachment on fatigue strength was greater in out-of-plane gusset than in in-plane gusset. The fatigue strength of welded details with short attachment was superior to that with long attachment. Fatigue strength of welded details with transversely loaded welds was lower than that with longitudinally loaded welds, and those results were not satisfied with AASHTO specifications. For the fatigue strength of cover plate, cover plate with rectangular section was superior to that with tapered section. It was found that the fatigue crack initiates at the points of stress concentration which are the boundary between the base metal and the bead of weld in the part of the longitudinal edge of attachment, and propagates first along the boundary and along the perpendicular to the direction of the principle stress in the base metal of welded tip.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Advanced Composite Structures
• /
• v.4 no.4
• /
• pp.30-36
• /
• 2013

Partially earth anchored (PEA) can improve the structural safety and economic feasibility of multiple span cable stayed bridge (CSB). The PEA-CSB can restrain axial compressive load acting on a tower and reduce the global buckling length of a stiffened girder. For these reasons, structural members subject to axial forces can be effectively utilized and material quantity required for a steel deck can be reduced to save construction cost. In this study, the PEA system was verified for its application on a multiple span CSB. The CSB is a four-tower multi-span bridge which has a main span length of 500 m. As high tensile stress was generated at the top of the bridge decks at the mid-span between two main columns, a hybrid deck system for enhancing the bridge deck sections was proposed. While the composite sections made of concrete and steel were used near to the main columns, steel sections were used at the mid-span between two main columns.

• Journal of the Korea Concrete Institute
• /
• v.15 no.4
• /
• pp.625-633
• /
• 2003

For the construction of open-topped steel box girder bridges, prefabricated concrete slab could offer several advantages over cast-in-situ deck including good quality control, fast construction, and elimination of the formwork for concrete slab casting. However, precast decks without reinforcements at transverse joints between precast slabs should be designed to prevent the initiation of cracking at the joints, because the performance of the joint is especially crucial for the integrity of a structural system. Several prestressing methods are available to introduce proper compression at the joints, such as internal tendons, external tendons and support lowering after shear connection. In this paper, experimental results from a continuous composite bridge model with precast decks are presented. Internal tendons and external tendons were used to prevent cracking at the joints. Judging from the tests, precast decks in negative moment regions have the whole contribution to the flexural stiffness of composite section under service loads if appropriate prestressing is introduced. The validity of the calculation of a cracking load fur serviceability was presented by comparing an observed cracking load and the calculated value. Flexural behavior of the continuous composite beam with external prestressing before and after cracking was discussed by using the deflection and strain data.

• KCI Concrete Journal
• /
• v.12 no.2
• /
• pp.55-72
• /
• 2000

This paper proposes a mechanical model to describe the load-deformation responses of the reinforced concrete plate members under service load state. An Analytical method is introduced on the basis of the rotating crack model which considers equilibrium, compatibility conditions, load-strain relationship of cracked member, and constitutive law for materials. The tension stiffening effect in reinforced concrete structures is taken into account by the average tensile stress-strain relationship from the load-strain relationship for the cracked member and the constitutive law for material. The strain compatibility is used to find out the crack direction because the crack direction is an unknown variable in the equilibrium and compatibility conditions. The proposed theory is verified by the numerous experimental data such as the crack direction, moment-steel strain relationship, moment-crack width relationship. The present paper can provide some basis for the provision of the definition of serviceability for plate structures of which reinforcements are deviated from the principal stresses, because the present code defines the serviceability by the deflection, crack control, vibration and fatigue basically for the skeletal members. The proposed theory is applicable to predict the service load state behavior of a variety of reinforced concrete plate structures such as skew slab bridges, the deck of skew girder bridges.