Long-Term Effects of Super Heavy-Weight Vehicles on Bridges; Final rept

摘要

A permit truck which exceeds the predefined limit of 108 kips is defined as a superload in Indiana. This study was conducted to examine the long-term effects of superload trucks on the performance of typical slab-on-girder bridges and to assess the likelihood of causing immediate damage. Typical steel and prestressed concrete slab-on-girder type bridges were analyzed using both beam line analysis and detailed finite element models. Furthermore, one prestressed concrete bridge and one steel bridge were instrumented using more than 50 sensors each. Strains and deflections were measured during a live load test, and each bridge was monitored for more than six months. Capacities of the investigated bridges were calculated and compared with the demands generated by various groupings of typical superload trucks. Analysis of the steel and prestressed concrete bridges demonstrated that typical superload trucks up to a gross vehicle weight of 500 kips are not expected to cause any damage or impair the long term performance of the investigated bridges.