Structural Monitoring of the World's First Precast Network Arch Bridge during Construction.

摘要

This report provides an overview of a monitoring study on the West 7th Street Bridge in Fort Worth, Texas that was carried out by The University of Texas at Austin (UT). The West 7th Street Bridge was designed by the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) and is believed to be the first precast concrete network arch bridge in the world. The bridge consists of a series of prestressed concrete arches that were precast and post-tensioned at a staging area before they were transported to the bridge site and erected. Due to the innovative construction of this bridge, some of the most critical stresses in the life of the arches happened during construction. Therefore, an instrumentation program was conducted to make sure that the arches were not damaged during the fabrication, transport, and erection procedures. The researchers from UT embedded a series of Vibrating Wire Gages (VWGs) in the critical sections of arches and monitored the sensors throughout construction to ensure the safety of the arches. The recorded data also allowed the researchers to evaluate the accuracy of some of the assumptions that were necessary during the design of the arches. An overview of the monitoring effort and the major findings from instrumentation are reported in this document.