United States Department of Transportation
i
Live load rating of cast-in-place concrete box culverts in Louisiana
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2016-07-01
[PDF-209.90 KB]
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Abstract:Bridges must be inspected and load-rated to make certain they are safe. About 20% of Louisiana’s bridge inventory is attributable to culverts. Current load-rating procedures consider culverts to behave like bridges. However, the use of bridge rating procedures for culverts can lead to questionable load restrictions. It is known that well-performing culverts below pavement and shallow depths of soil often end up with poor rating factors when using current bridge rating procedures. Those procedures are based on gross vehicle weight (GVW) loads. Axle or wheel loads are more applicable to buried culverts. This project proposes to conduct load testing of eight existing DOTD culverts. A structural health monitoring approach will be adopted for the purpose of extracting load responses that can be used to calibrate refined models for rating of culverts, ultimately leading to a better understanding about the behavior of buried cast-in-place concrete box culverts under typical highway axle loads. The objective of this study is to assess live load effects on cast-in-place concrete box culverts. Field load testing of selected culverts will be conducted, using instrumentation to monitor their response. The load test response data will be complemented with analytical and numerical investigations to help understand the discrepancy between the apparent good performance of existing culverts and the low rating factors obtained when using current procedures.
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