Evaluation of Member and Load-Path Redundancy on the US-421 Bridge Over the Ohio River
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2013-10-01
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Edition:Final Report
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Abstract:After several historical bridge failures, the fracture critical bridge classification was implemented for bridges in which the failure of a single member would probably lead to failure of the structure. This designation requires special inspection and bridge monitoring guidelines to be met increasing the lifetime cost of the bridge. As such, most bridge owners do not build new fracture critical bridges today. However, there is a very large population of older bridges that are deemed fracture critical. In order to reduce costs to state departments of transportation, without sacrificing the safety of the traveling public, it would be beneficial to remove the fracture critical designation from some bridges. This may be accomplished by considering the redundancy of the structure. Currently, there are no codified provisions to allow bridge owners to make use of redundancy in the structure and requests to do so are handled on a case-by-case basis. In older, built-up, riveted structures, there may be significant capacity present in both member and structural redundancy. This capacity could be significant enough that, even in a failed state, there may be ability for load redistribution to prevent failure of the bridge. This research is focused on the use of a simple modeling technique to predict structural redundancy. The proposed modeling scheme demonstrated acceptable correlation to the controlled load testing using field instrumentation. Destructive testing was performed to confirm the ability of the program to accurately predict redundancy in a damaged state. Such models may be the first steps to opening doors to use other types of redundancy, beyond load path, by which to classify members as fracture-critical or not.
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