The structural behaviour of horizontally curved prestressed concrete box girder bridges

AlHamaidah, ASM

Abstract

Bridges are important and efficient structures which are comprised of a number of elements and
substructures, namely the deck, abutment and foundation and possibly additional intermediate
supports. Recently the horizontally curved box girder bridge has become more desirable in
modern motorway systems and big cities. Even though numerous amounts of research have been
in progress to analyse and understand the behaviour of all types of box-girder bridges, the results
from these different research projects are unevaluated and dispersed.

Therefore, a clear understanding of an accurate study on straight and curved box-girder bridges
is needed. In this study, a three dimensional straight and horizontally curved prestressed box
section has been analysed with shell elements using the finite element analysis program ANSYS
to examine structural behaviour and load carrying capacity. The box girder under static gravity,
pre-stressed and gravity + pre-stressed loading has been analysed. The model which has been
investigated in this report is taken from a published paper and expanded to study the effects of
curvature under different loads applied (UDLs). The report concludes that the FEA using shell
elements is able to predict the behaviour of box girders with adequate accuracy through the
comparisons made between stress results from analytical hand calculations and published work,
both for the straight and curved box girder bridges.

Further theoretical and analytical investigations have been carried out to study the effects of
parameters such as horizontal curvature, prestressing, and traffic patterning. For this purpose, a
new model was created, modelled with an accurate prestress representation and analysed as a
three-dimensional model using the ANSYS.

This thesis presents a complete description of the bridge system, addressing the aforementioned
parameters and presenting the results through graphs of stress distribution, and displacement.
Recommendations for the practical use of FE for bridge design are discussed.

Citation

AlHamaidah, A. (in press). The structural behaviour of horizontally curved prestressed concrete box girder bridges. (Thesis). University of Salford

• Thesis Type: Thesis
• Acceptance Date: Sep 1, 2017
• Deposit Date: Feb 21, 2018
• Publicly Available Date: Feb 21, 2018
• Additional Information: Funders : The Higher Committee for Education Development in Iraq; Projects : The Structural Behaviour of Horizontally Curved Prestressed Concrete Box Girder Bridges