Date of Award:

5-2014

Document Type:

Thesis

Degree Name:

Master of Science (MS)

Department:

Civil and Environmental Engineering

Committee Chair(s)

Paul J. Barr

Committee

Paul J. Barr

Committee

James A. Bay

Committee

Marvin W. Halling

Abstract

The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) created the Long-Term Bridge Performance (LTBP) program with the objective of acquiring quality scientific data for in-service bridge performance throughout the United States. This information will be used to improve the practices of bridge design and maintenance. To accomplish this objective, a variety of sensors were installed on a bridge south of Sacramento, California and a bridge near Perry, Utah. Data from the sensors is constantly gather and analyzed.

This research analyzed the data from the temperature sensors in order to investigate the effect of temperature changes in the California and Utah bridges over a period of more than two years. Maximum and minimum average bridge temperatures over time are determined and compared to current code specifications. Long-term bridge temperature estimations are calculated based on ambient historical data and were found to exceed code specifications. Temperature induced stresses exceeded the code limits for the California bridge and were close to
the limit in the case of the Utah bridge.

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