Impact of overweight vehicles (with heavy axle loads) on bridge deck deterioration.

Details

• Creators:
  Lin, Zhibin ; Zhao, Jian ; Tabatabai, Habib
• Corporate Creators:
  National Center for Freight and Infrastructure Research and Education (U.S.) ; United States. Dept. of Transportation. Research and Innovative Technology Administration
• Subject/TRT Terms:
  Axle Loads Bridge Decks Overweight Loads
• Publication/ Report Number:
  CFIRE 04-06
• Resource Type:
  Tech Report
• Geographical Coverage:
  Wisconsin
• Corporate Publisher:
  National Center for Freight and Infrastructure Research and Education (U.S.)
• Abstract:
  Bridge deck slabs develop compressive stresses from global flexural deformation and locally from high-level
  
  wheel loads when it is subjected to overweight trucks. This study quantified the impact of overweight vehicles
  
  with heavy axle loads on bridge decks using laboratory tests and numerical simulations.
  
  The laboratory tests focused on evaluating the impact of combined mechanical stresses and freeze-thaw cycles on
  
  the durability of air-entrained concrete. Concrete cylinders, after being cured in saturated limewater for 28 days,
  
  were subjected to various levels of compressive loads and then exposed to 300 freeze-thaw (F/T) cycles. Rapid
  
  chloride ion penetrability tests were conducted to evaluate the chloride permeability of the concrete samples. The
  
  laboratory test results indicated that the mechanical loading combined with freeze-thaw cycles significantly
  
  increased the permeability of air-entrained concrete and may accelerate the deterioration of concrete elements
  
  such as bridge decks. The observed permeability increase was due to the fact that higher compressive loads
  
  caused more extensive microcracks in concrete, and the damaged concrete further degrades under freeze-thaw
  
  cycles, which may have further opened and interconnected the microcracks.
  
  Bridge deck analyses were conducted to investigate stress distributions and stress levels in typical concrete
  
  bridge decks subjected to high axle loads. The numerical analyses using the idealized bridge models indicated
  
  that the normal stress in bridge decks in the transverse direction can be significantly affected by the thickness of
  
  bridge deck, the girder spacing, and the magnitude of the wheel loads. The analyses results also indicated that
  
  the normal stresses in the longitudinal direction may be calculated as the summation of the stresses due to global
  
  bending of the bridge superstructure under the truck loads, which can estimated using typical design/rating
  
  procedures and the stress elevations near the wheel loads. The proposed equations may be used, in addition to the
  
  typical design/rating calculations, to capture the adverse stresses in bridge decks subjected to overweight trucks.
  
  
• Format:
  PDF
• Funding:
  248K091
• Collection(s):
  University Transportation Centers US Transportation Collection
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha256:b9c6a77d0d26dcb19cc4f2d5f814209f495e8c6a2cb99e4904981a43c75b27dd
• Download URL:
  https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/25356/dot_25356_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 17.05 MB ]