• Journal of Korean Society of Steel Construction
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.231-239
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• 2003

Many box girder bridges have been constructed during the past several decades due to their large bending and torsional rigidities as well as aesthetic considerations. However, box girders have shortcoming in that the cross section distorts under an eccentric loading and warps out of the section plane. Therefore, in order to reduce distortional stresses such as distortional warping and transverse bending normal stresses, diaphragms were generally installed in the box girders. Shapes of the diaphragms in steel-box-girder bridges constructed up to date were solid-plate, frame, and truss types. The objectives of this study using parametric study were to evaluate the appropriate stiffness ratio of intermediate diaphragms and then to propose the effective spacing and numbers of intermediate diaphragms based on the evaluated stiffness ratio. Target bridges for this study were straight continuous span bridges with a single-cell steel box section. The parameters for the parametric study were the shape of box section, the span numbers, the equivalent span length, the stiffness of intermediate diaphragms, and the spacing of intermediate diaphragms. From the results of the parametric study, the effective spacing and numbers as well as the stiffness ratio of the intermediate diaphragms will be presented.

• Journal of Korean Society of Steel Construction
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• v.18 no.5
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• pp.515-524
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• 2006

Cross-sectional distortions take place when steel box girders a re subjected to torsional moment, as a consequence of which distortional warping stresses are necessarily developed. Additional normal stresses due to the distortion are should be included at the design stage. The relative magnitude with respect to the maximum bending stress are kept less than the specific values, i.e., at 5~10%, by properly spaced intermediate diaphragms that could prevent the distortional deformation of the box girder. However, current design equations for the stiffness of intermediate diaphragms were derived based on BEF. In this study, the area required by the intermediate diaphragm members are investigated through three-dimensional finite element analyses. The results of the analyses indicate that the current equations give to conservative values for the intermediate diaphragm of box girder bridges. Finally, an improved equation for the area of the intermediate diaphragm is derived from a regression analysis from the finite element analysis results.

• Proceedings of the KSR Conference
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• 2003.10b
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• pp.522-530
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• 2003

Generally, diaphragms are installed in the box girder to prevent or decrease the distortion of the cross section. In engineering practice, diaphragms are spaced in 5m intervals without reasonable basis. the usual diaphragm type is solid-plate type. It is considered to be noneconomical design to the almost design engineers. In this paper, the parametric study was performed to present the design proposal about the diaphragm stiffness and spacing only in the single cell box girder. For that, the distortional warping normal stress, bending normal stress and transverse bending normal stress were analyzed using finite element program 'SMB' for the accurate structural analysis.

• Journal of Korean Society of Steel Construction
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• v.11 no.1 s.38
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• pp.13-22
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• 1999

The objective of this paper is to develop a program for distortional analysis of steel box girder bridges. This program is formulated by using MSDM(modified slope deflection method). Two examples are carried out to verify the validity of the developed technique and its computation procedures. The analyzed results are compared with the previously proposed methods, BEF(beam on elastic foundation) and EBEF(equivalent beam on elastic foundation). The BEF method is limited only to prismatic straight box girders. In the EBEF method, stiffness of the intermediate diaphragms is infinitely considered. On the other hand, stiffness of the intermediate diaphragms is idealized as spring contant in this study. And then, nonprismatic straight box girders can be analyzed using the same procedure. Therefore, the comparison shows that the MSDM algorithm proposed in this paper is more efficient and reliable. Also parametric studies are perfomed using the proposed algorithm.