United States Department of Transportation
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Development of a Strategy To Address Load-Posted Bridges Through Reduction in Uncertainty in Load Ratings—Volume 2: Load Testing and Modeling for Refined Load Rating
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2022-08-01
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[PDF-37.20 MB]
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Alternative Title:Development of a Strategy To Address Load-Posted Bridges Through Reduction in Uncertainty in Load Ratings [Project Title from Cover]
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Edition:September 2017–October 2019
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Abstract:Maintaining the functionality of the transportation infrastructure depends on the successful management of aging bridge assets. Departments of transportation rely on the load rating process to evaluate the sufficiency of the bridge structures in their state, and they post load restrictions if the capacity of a bridge does not meet the maximum load effect based on current legal loads. Removing load postings is always of interest because there can be commerce, traffic, and emergency egress issues due to rerouting of vehicles. Posted structures come in various shapes and sizes, are built in different eras and environments, and exhibit vastly different structural behaviors. Thus, there is no clear-cut single solution for addressing the possibility of removing postings. In this study, strategies were developed to reduce uncertainty in load rating procedures in a safe and appropriate manner to potentially increase or remove the load postings of typical steel and concrete bridges. The Volume 1 report (Hueste et al. 2019a) documented findings that included a review of the state-of-the-practice and state-of-the-art for load rating existing bridges, a review and synthesis of the bridge characteristics of load-posted bridges in Texas, and the basic load rating analysis conducted for selected representative bridges to identify the controlling limit states. This Volume 2 report documents further study for typical bridges, including refined analysis for more accurate prediction of load distribution, load testing, model updating and calibration, and refined load rating analysis. The load testing of the selected load-posted bridges, along with model updating and calibration based on the field measurements, is used to determine refined load ratings to compare with the basic load ratings. The results are reviewed with respect to the implications and opportunities for load rating these bridges and similar bridge structures to potentially increase the posted loads or remove the load restrictions.
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