Date of Award:

5-2012

Document Type:

Thesis

Degree Name:

Master of Science (MS)

Department:

Civil and Environmental Engineering

Committee Chair(s)

Marvin Halling

Committee

Marvin Halling

Committee

Paul Barr

Committee

Steven Folkman

Abstract

Accelerated bridge construction (ABC) techniques are popular among the department of transportations (DOTs). Innovative design and construction methods and high performance materials are used to reduce the typical bridge construction timeline without sacrificing bridge quality. The goal of accelerated bridge construction is to open a cost-effective, long-lasting bridge to traffic with increased safety and reduced traffic disruption in a shortened construction period. Accelerated bridge construction majorly uses steel-concrete composite bridges with full depth precast decks which has two types of connections, shear connection between steel girder and precast deck and transverse joint between precast panels. Longitudinal prestress is applied to prevent crack and water leakage to transverse joints, which otherwise would decrease the life of the bridge considerably. The post-tensioned connection currently used is effective in strengthening the transverse joint, but once this post-tensioning system is installed it makes it very difficult to replace individual deck sections that begin to fail.

This thesis proposes and evaluates the curved-bolt connection which is aimed to provide the necessary posttensioning as well as make the deck replacement possible. To compare the capacities of both the connections, a negative bending flexure test and shear test is performed for both the connections has been done. The negative bending test is chosen because the concrete slab is subjected to tensile force and the steel profile to compression. This leads to slab cracking in tension and steel profile buckling in compression. An improved test setup was used to capture the shear stresses in both the connections to compare their capacities in shear.

Load-deflection, shear-deflection curves were obtained using the experimental tests and were used to compare with the values obtained from finite element analysis. In flexure, the ultimate load predicted by the finite element model was lower than the experimental ultimate load by 1% for the post-tensioned connection and 3% for the curved-bolt connection. The shear models predicted the ultimate shear reached, within 5% of the experimental values. The cracking pattern also matched closely. The yield and cracking moment of the curved-bolt connection predicted by the finite element model were lower by 7% and 2%, respectively, compared to the post-tensioned connection in flexure.

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Comments

This work made publicly available electronically on July 29, 2012.

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