Experimental and analytical evaluation of all-composite highway bridge deck

摘要

This paper presents a summary of the results of both the experimental and the numerical studies conducted on evaluating the structural behavior of all-composite hybrid bridge deck. The carbon/fiberglass reinforced-polymeric deck was designed to replace existing low-profile welded steel gratings that is deteriorating due to high fatigue loadings on the Schuyler Heim Bridge in Long Beach, California. In this study, a total of nine tests, both small- and full-scale, were conducted. The experimental test results indicated that the composite bridge deck has exceeded both the predicted design and ultimate capacities. The span-to-deflection ratio at the mid-span was L/738 based on a span length of 48" (1.22 m). This deflection range is satisfactory for the majority of highway bridges decking systems with other materials. The average safety factor (SF) of the composite deck design was 6. In all tests, the ultimate failure was initiated either by a punching shear under the loading steel plate, or/and by the delamination of the curved portion of the drop sandwich panel. The latter local failure mode is attributed to the high radial stress components generated at the tension side of the deck. In modeling the performance of the composite deck, the GENEA progressive failure analysis numerical code was used to perform virtual testing of the composite decks under both quasi-static and fatigue loading conditions.