MS, University of Cincinnati, 2007, Engineering : Civil Engineering

Bridges B-0071 and B-0171 in Hamilton County, Ohio have been in service for about fifty years. They are short span bridges with prestressed concrete girders. Until late 2001, they had conventional reinforced concrete decks, which have been replaced with fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) decks. Two girders in bridge B-0171 were replaced with new prestressed girders. These bridges are significant as there are few instances of FRP decks on concrete girders. The Hamilton County Engineers Office contracted with the Civil Engineering Department at the University of Cincinnati to perform load testing on the bridges. Information gained from this research will seek to confirm the safety of the new technology, evaluate construction and design techniques with reference to the FRP deck, and determine overall performance of the bridge to provide understanding of the system. The two short span prestressed concrete bridges with fiber reinforced polymer decks were subjected to four sets of nondestructive truckload testing. Strain gauges were placed along the height of the girder cross-section, and longitudinally and transversely across the bottom of the deck. Displacement transducers were placed to measure overall girder displacement, relative deck displacement, deck panel separation, and deck-girder connection separation. A three-dimensional finite element analysis model was created to replicate the performance of each bridge. The two new prestressed girders in bridge B-0171 strengthened the bridge considerably and increased its load carrying capacity. But the old prestressed girders in bridge B-0071 and bridge B-0171 did not show any sign of deterioration. The four sets of test data collected over a two-year period show that the age effect on structural behavior is very small for both the bridges. The deck had very little influence on the distribution of loads in the structure for these bridges. Due to low deck stiffness and incomplete connectivity, the FRP deck did little to streng (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Dr. Michael Baseheart (Advisor) Subjects: Engineering, Civil