Long-Term Durability of Fiber-Reinforced Polymers (FRPs) and In-Situ Monitoring of FRP Bridge Decks at O'Fallon Park Bridge

Details

• Creators:
  Xi, Yunping ; Chang, Sunyoung ; Asiz, Andi ; Li, Yue
• Corporate Creators:
  University of Colorado at Boulder. Dept. of Civil, Environmental and Architectural Engineering
• Corporate Contributors:
  Colorado. Department of Transportation ; United States. Department of Transportation. Federal Highway Administration
• Subject/TRT Terms:
  • Glass fiber reinforced plastics
  • Environmental impacts
  • Fatigue strength
  • Load tests
  • Freeze thaw durability
  • Moisture content
  • Deicing
  • Bridge decks
  • environmental conditions
  • fatigue loading
  More +
• Publication/ Report Number:
  CDOT-DTD-R-2004-03
• Resource Type:
  Tech Report
• Geographical Coverage:
  United States ; Colorado
• Edition:
  Final Report
• Corporate Publisher:
  Colorado. Department of Transportation
• Description:
  Glass fiber reinforced polymers (GFRPs) were selected and used to build the bridge deck for O'Fallon Park Bridge in Denver, Colorado. This report contains two parts. The first part is an in-house experimental study on the durability of the selected GFRPs, and the second part is an on-site loading test for the behavior of one GFRP panel of the bridge and a long-term monitoring study of the panel. The influential parameters for the durability of GFRPs were reviewed, including freeze-thaw cycles, moisture penetration, deicing chemicals, alkali and acid attacks, and ultraviolet light. Experimental plans were carefully designed for the in-house durability study and the on-site loading test, as well as for the long-term monitoring of the bridge panel. Every environmental parameter tested in the study resulted in a degradation of GFRPs to a certain extent. From the strength aspect, the worst degradation was a 35% reduction of tensile strength of the GFRP subjected to the ponding of 1M NaOH solution. From the stiffness point of view, the worst degradation was a 32% reduction of Young's modulus of the GFRP subjected to the ponding of 3% Ca(Cl2) solution. The strains due to the mechanical loading (a CDOT truck) are very small. Therefore, the structural design of the GFRP panel for O'Fallon Park Bridge is very conservative. Comparing the effect of environmental temperature with the effect of mechanical loading, it is very clearly that the effect of temperature is dominant. Therefore, in addition to the mechanical fatigue loading test performed in this project, a larger scale cyclic temperature test for the FRP panel is very necessary and important for evaluating the long-term performance of the panel.
• Format:
  PDF
• Funding:
  87.30
• Download URL:
  https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/93313/dot_93313_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 1.06 MB]
• Collection(s):
  US Transportation Collection
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:fa2c309b035508e3931685e3a55b357dfcdc91b583a92d5ef8b3029b1fb1f5c9535cfea9c705abe6db63aea6bae3954a623538d62fe6fc2d6617d263d9f233a1