Study of elastomeric bearings for superelevated U-Beam bridges.

Details

• Creators:
  Newhouse, Charles D. ; Bole, Scott A. ; Burkett, W. R. ; Nash, Phillip T. ; El-Shami, Mostafa
• Corporate Creators:
  Texas Tech University. College of Engineering
• Corporate Contributors:
  Texas. Dept. of Transportation. Research and Technology Implementation Office ; United States. Federal Highway Administration
• Subject/TRT Terms:
  • Elastomers
  • Bridge bearings
  • Bridge substructures
  • Bridge members
  • Bridges
  • Elastomers--Testing
  • Bridges--Bearings--Texas--Design and construction
  • Bridges--Maintenance and repair
• Publication/ Report Number:
  FHWA/TX -09-5834-1 ; 0-5834-1
• Resource Type:
  Tech Report
• Geographical Coverage:
  Texas
• Edition:
  Technical Report; Sept. 2007-Aug. 2009.
• Corporate Publisher:
  Texas Tech University. Center for Multidisciplinary Research in Transportation
• Abstract:
  The primary objective of this research was to determine the best way to consider the effects of transverse ; superelevation on uniform-height steel-reinforced elastomeric bearing pads for U-Beam bridges. Existing TxDOT ; design provisions did not specifically account for the effects of the transverse superelevation. A nationwide survey ; of Departments of Transportation (DOTs) revealed that the country was nearly evenly split on whether or not ; superstructure elements such as U-Beams should be placed on a transverse superelevation. Specific modifications ; to the AASHTO Method “A” design of elastomeric bearing equations were developed to account for the transverse ; superelevation. The proposed modifications were evaluated over typical U-Beam span/spacing combinations for ; both the U-40 and U-54 sections. The ability of the proposed modifications to predict actual behavior was ; evaluated by inspecting existing bridges and performing full-scale laboratory testing. Both the field inspections and ; the laboratory testing validated the need for the proposed revisions. These proposed revisions have been submitted ; as suggested revisions to the TxDOT LRFD Bridge Design Manual. The feasibility of electronic monitoring in-situ ; bearings that have experienced significant transverse deflections was investigated. The bulging on the sides of the ; bearings made monitoring unreliable. Instead, a method to manually record pertinent information during the ; routine bridge inspection is recommended.
  More +
• Format:
  PDF
• Funding:
  0-5834
• Download URL:
  https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/17937/dot_17937_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 13.07 MB]
• Collection(s):
  US Transportation Collection
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha256:c5f76522a81dd517b6e9286af4b9afd8955b9f8d3e77fe3cd4e4040e9ade8549