At head of title: National Cooperative Highway Research Program.

Analyses on catastrophic collapse of some adjacent precast concrete box bean bridges reveal the fact that the function loss of shear keys can result in the formation of the "Single Plate Load Effect"; as a result, loads cannot transfer between adjacent beams and damage to both the structure and vehicles can be triggered on the loaded beam by heave trucks. This leads to the concern that the system safety of adjacent precast concrete beam bridges becomes insufficient when the shear keys deteriorate to a certain degree. To understand the system performance of this type of bridges, this dissertation studied the system performance of a model bridge over the full load range through an experimental investigation and finite element simulation. The results confirmed that the assumption that the robustness of certain adjacent precast concrete beam bridges may be considered safe according to the traditional safely check standards, but may not be sufficient in terms of the system safety criteria. Thus, a system factor is recommended to be applied in the safety check equation of this type of bridges. Even though some codes have already incorporated the criteria for evaluating the system behavior of highway bridges in the design and evaluating procedure, little guidance has been provided on how to determine corresponding redundancy or system factors. On the basis of the experiment findings and theoretical analysis, a simplified framework was proposed to address the particular structural feature and topology of adjacent precast concrete bean bridges, which can reduce the computation complexity compared to existing approaches for redundancy and robustness assessment. Sensitive parameters for system reliability were investigated and system reliability indices were computed using a finite element response surface method. The rationality and calibration of system factors were analyzed. In the end, the procedure for system safety and reliability assessment of adjacent precast concrete box beam bridges was applied on a bridge in service with different transverse connections and damage scenarios. The case study verified the proposed approach and outlined the procedure that can be adopted for routine bridge evaluation practice.

The commercial operation of the bullet train in 1964 in Japan marked the beginning of a new era for high-speed railways. Because of the huge amount of kinetic energy carried at high speeds, a train may interact significantly with the bridge and even resonate with it under certain circumstances. Equally important is the riding comfort of the train cars, which relates closely to the maneuverability of the train during its passage over the bridge at high speeds.This book is unique in that it is devoted entirely to the interaction between the supporting bridges and moving trains, the so-called vehicle-bridge interaction (VBI). Finite element procedures have been developed to treat interaction problems of various complexities, while the analytical solutions established for some typical problems are helpful for identifying the key parameters involved. Besides, some field tests were conducted to verify the theories established.This book provides an up-to-date coverage of research conducted on various aspects of the VBI problems. Using the series of VBI elements derived, the authors study a number of frontier problems, including the impact response of bridges with elastic bearings, the dynamic response of curved beam to moving centrifugal forces, the stability and derailment of trains moving over bridges shaken by earthquakes, the impact response of two trains crossing on a bridge, the steady-state response of trains moving over elevated bridges, and so on.

The second edition of this bestselling handbook covers virtually all the information an engineer would need to know about any type of bridge-from planning to construction to maintenance. It contains more than 2,500 tables, charts, and illustrations in a practical, ready-to-use format and an abundance of worked-out examples give readers numerous step-by-step design procedures. Extensively updated and featuring several new chapters, this volume, Construction and Maintenance, covers construction, inspection, bridge management systems, health monitoring, ratings, strengthening and rehabilitation, life cycle analysis and much more.

Due to significant economic growth in the last few decades, increasing traffic loads impose tremendous demand on bridge structures. This, coupled with ongoing deterioration of bridges, introduces a unique challenge to bridge engineers in maintaining service of these infrastructure assets without disruption to vital economic and social activities. This requires innovative solutions and optimized methodologies to achieve safe and efficient operation of bridge structures. Bridge engineering practitioners, researchers, owners, and contractors from all over the world presented on modern techniques in design, inspection, monitoring and rehabilitation of bridge structures, at the Sixth New York City Bridge Conference held New York City on July 25-26, 2011. This book contains a select number of papers presented at the conference. This group of papers provides a state-of-the-art in bridge engineering and is of interest to any reader in the field.