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After serious damage of the bascule of the Van Brienenoord Bridge in one of the
main highways in the Netherlands and its replacement a special Task Force was
formed within the Civil Engineering Division of the Dutch Ministry of Transport,
Public Works and Water Management. The aim was to investigate the cause, to
understand and control the fatigue...
Citations
... The concept of adding a thin UHPFRC cover (with thickness ≤ 60mm generally), as external stiffener and protection layer to either improve existing OSD or combine with optimized OSD as new deck element (Figure 1), has been developed and implemented extensively over last 10 years [4][5][6]. ...
A novel steel-UHPFRC composite deck system, consisting of upper thin reinforced UHPFRC slab, hot rolled sections as longitudinal ribs, and steel strips as transversal reinforcement, is proposed originally in this paper. Considered as more economic and sustainable structure, the new composite deck is a promising alternative to traditional orthotropic steel deck (OSD) in long-span bridge. In this context, due to the relatively thin UHPFRC layer, the punching behavior of new composite deck becomes one of the dominant issues, which determines the spacing of steel trips. Hence, this paper presents the results of punching tests on 12 new composite deck slabs with various spacing of steel strips. All slabs failed in punching-flexure mode with a clearly delimited punching cone and significant flexural cracks on tensile surface. Moreover, the presence of steel strips can increase the punching shear resistance and flatten the inclination of critical shear cracks.
... In addition, some scholars have conducted some research on the mechanical performance of steel-UHPFRC composite structures. Peter Buitelaar [10] showed that the rehabilitation and strengthening of OSD with reinforced high-performance concrete overlay can extend the service life of OSD by improving the stiffness. Dieng et al. [11] and Choi [12] found that adding a thin UHPFRC layer to OSD could reduce the stresses of this composite structure and the thickness of UHPFRC affected the appearance and propagation of cracks. ...
Ultra-high-performance fiber-reinforced cementitious composite (UHPFRC) is used in orthotropic steel deck (OSD) to form a lightweight composite deck structure (LWCD), which is expected to solve the problems of fatigue cracking of traditional steel deck and pavement damage. This paper aims to study the influence of key design parameters on longitudinal bending and transverse fatigue performance, as well as the ultimate bearing capacity calculation theory of the LWCD. A local finite-element (FE) model was built to evaluate the vehicle-induced stress ranges of six typical fatigue-prone details. In total, eight negative bending tests on steel-UHPFRC composite beams and one fatigue test on a steel-UHPFRC composite plate were conducted to investigate the longitudinal bending performance and the transverse flexural fatigue behavior of the LWCD, respectively. The results show that adding a 60-mm UHPFRC layer can significantly reduce the stress amplitude of six typical fatigue details by 44.8% to 90%. The failure mode of the longitudinal bending tests is the U-rib buckle and all UHPFRC layers exhibit multiple cracking behaviors when the specimens failed. The longitudinal cracking stresses of the specimens are between 20.0 MPa to 27.3 MPa. The reinforcement ratio and cover thickness have a great influence on the cracking stress. While the ultimate bearing capacity of specimens with different parameters has little difference. The calculation method of the ultimate bearing capacity of a steel-UHPFRC composite structure is proposed. When the strain at the bottom of the u-rib is taken as 1.2 times the design yield strain, the calculated results are in good agreement with the experimental results. No fatigue failure was observed after 66.12 million fatigue cycles under the design load, highlighting the favorable fatigue resistance of the proposed LWCD.
... A developed renovation technique for fixed bridges is a surfacing of highperformance concrete (De Jong and Kolstein, 2004;Buitelaar et al., 2004). Fixed bridges often have a wearing course of approximately 50 mm mastic asphalt, with low stiffness. ...
... 25ϫ50 mm Figure 24.12 Very dense RHPC reinforcement (Buitelaar et al., 2004). Figure 24.13 ...
... Figure 24.13 RHPC overlay on OSD deck plate (Buitelaar et al., 2004). ...
Structural health monitoring (SHM) has the potential to transform the bridge engineering industry by providing stakeholders with additional information to inform decisions about the design, operation, and management of bridges throughout their life. This chapter gives guidance on SHM for engineers who design, build, operate and maintain bridges. There remain numerous technical challenges to overcome when deploying SHM systems, but the most important issues to be considered are how to decide what information is required and then how to develop a strategy to deliver this information in a form that is easy to interpret so as to inform decision making. This chapter presents a series of case studies to show how SHM systems can be used in practice to obtain valuable data and to explore the challenges faced during such projects. Future directions for emerging technologies and approaches for future research and management of bridge SHM systems are also discussed.
... To solve or alleviate the severe fatigue cracking in OSD, one of the promising solutions is casting rebar reinforced high-performance concrete (Buitelaar et al. 2004) or ultra-high-performance concrete (Shao et al. 2013) to the top surface of OSD used to improve the local stiffness. The reinforced concrete layer is usually connected to the OSD by shortheaded studs welded on the steel deck plate, and this kind of deck is usually named as the composite deck (Cao et al. 2017). ...
p>In recent years, ultra-high performance concrete (UHPC) has been introduced in the design of orthotropic steel decks (OSD) to reduce the risk of fatigue cracking. To investigate the fatigue behaviour and fatigue damage process of the orthotropic steel-UHPC composite bridge deck, a full- scale specimen was designed and tested under cyclic loading. Test results show that the fatigue resistance of orthotropic steel-UHPC composite bridge deck satisfies the requirements of the designed vehicle load up to 2 million cycles with no cracks occurred in this phase. Rib-to-crossbeam weld and U-rib butt-welded connection are the two most vulnerable details to crack in OSD under cyclic loading. The fatigue resistance of U-rib bolted connection was investigated, and it is concluded that it performs better than that of U-rib butt-welded connection. The short-headed studs fractured under excessive cyclic loading and 5 types of the fatigue failure modes are identified. And the UHPC layer above the crossbeam exhibited limited number of cracks with the maximum crack width less than 0.05mm at the end of the cyclic, much beyond the requirements.</p
... A group of Dutch officers, civil engineers, and scholars launched a study on the repair and prevention methods of OSD fatigue cracking. In 1999, they proposed laying ultrathin heavy reinforced highperformance concrete (UTHRHPC) on top of an OSD to solve the cracking problem [16]. Later, UTHRHPC was first paved on the OSD of the Van Brienenoord Bridge in the Netherlands with a paving area of 60 m 2 [17]. ...
Orthotropic steel decks (OSDs) have been widely used in long-span bridges due to their advantages of being lightweight, having high capacity, and allowing rapid construction. However, due to the insufficiency of local stiffness of OSD, fatigue cracking and pavement damage have been common problems of OSDs worldwide. It seriously affects the safety and durability of long-span bridges. Therefore, to solve this problem, this paper introduces an innovative steel ultrahigh-performance concrete (steel-UHPC) lightweight composite deck (LWCD). LWCD can reduce the fatigue stress of the conventional OSD by up to 80% and extend the fatigue life to twice the design requirements. Furthermore, engineering practices in China have proven that LWCD can effectively reduce manufacturing costs and maintenance costs throughout the whole life cycle of the structures. Thus, to provide references for design and maintenance of long-span bridges, this paper introduces the structural design, construction techniques, joint construction design, repair methods, and economic benefits of LWCD in detail. Furthermore, numerical simulations and laboratory tests are introduced in this paper to validate the superiority of LWCD.
... Due to insufficient stiffness of the steel deck plate, excessively heavy transportation loads, and other reasons, conventional OSD pavement might be easily damaged, leading to potential fatigue cracks occurred at the steel bridge deck [4][5][6][7][8]. To solve these problems, enhancement of the stiffness of the bridge deck has been widely recognized [9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20] as one of the effective means to reduce the fatigue stress amplitude in an OSD. In 2002, Buitelaar [9] proposed to strengthen OSD with 50 mm Reinforced High Performance Concrete (RHPC) connected via an epoxy resin bonding layer. ...
... To solve these problems, enhancement of the stiffness of the bridge deck has been widely recognized [9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20] as one of the effective means to reduce the fatigue stress amplitude in an OSD. In 2002, Buitelaar [9] proposed to strengthen OSD with 50 mm Reinforced High Performance Concrete (RHPC) connected via an epoxy resin bonding layer. In addition, it was successfully applied to Caland Bridge in the Netherlands. ...
... Similarly, the fatigue life prediction method prescribed in AASHTO LRFD [38] was also used to calculate the cumulative fatigue life of the UHPC layer by Eqs. (8), (9), (11) and (12). The nominal stress amplitude Δσ p.i of the test model in each loading phase was calculated by Eqs. ...
A cost-effective Lightweight Composite Bridge Deck (LCBD) system, including Orthotropic Steel Deck (OSD) and lightweight Ultra-High Performance Concrete (UHPC) layer is proposed to increase the stiffness and fatigue performance of conventional OSD. Static and fatigue tests on two full-scale strip models subjected to four-point bending were carried out. The static nominal cracking stress of the UHPC layer with reinforcement spacing of 80 mm is 24.59 MPa, while it increases to 35.68 MPa when the reinforcement spacing is reduced to half (40 mm); both values are far greater than the nominal stress of 12.7 MPa obtained in the prototype bridge. Increasing the reinforcement ratio can increase the bending stiffness of LCBD and decrease the tensile strain of the UHPC layer, while the change in range is relative slight. Furthermore, the flexural strength of UHPC and the reinforcement ratio are important factors affecting the fatigue life of the UHPC layer. When the reinforcement spacing increases from 40 mm to 80 mm, the fatigue life of the UHPC layer still satisfies related code requirements. Thus, for reduction in the engineering cost and construction complexity, the reinforcement spacing can be set as 80 mm. However, the application of the UHPC as the steel deck pavement, the rib-to-diaphragm welded joint is still prone to fatigue cracks. In addition, the existing S-N curves are hard to directly use for fatigue life prediction of the UHPC layer because of the great differences in the definition of stress level and evaluation index of failure in the fatigue test, which need to be modified in further studies.
... On the other hand, high performance concrete was employed to serve as a rigid wearing surface of OSD, which could efficiently improve the whole rigidity of bridge deck system. For instance, reinforced high performance concrete (RHPC) was adopted as the rigid wearing surface of the Caland Bridge in Portland; however, fatigue cracks still occurred in the RHPC layer [17]. A similar phenomenon was also presented in installation using a steel fiber reinforced concrete (SFRC) surface of OSD [18]. ...
A novel ultra high performance concrete (UHPC) layer composite orthotropic steel deck was adopted in the construction of a new bridge in China to improve the fatigue performance of the orthotropic steel deck plate and reduce the disease of surface wearing layer. In situ experiments were conducted to study the UHPC layer’s impact on the behavior of the orthotropic steel deck. The test vehicle loads were applied on the deck plate before and after UHPC layer paving, the stresses where fatigue cracks usually occur and the deflections of critical sections were measured. The test results verified that the UHPC composite steel deck system could significantly reduce the stress of the rib-to-deck connection region and the stress at the bottom toe of rib-to-diaphragm weld. In addition, it slightly influenced the performance of U shape rib, girder web-to-deck and diaphragm cutout.
... This supported the idea as original proposed by Contec ApS to use an HRUTWT. Results from tests and applications demonstrated that the intended application of the HRUTWT is a very promising solution to rehabilitate orthotropic steel bridge decks to elongate the service life of the total structure since it increase the "plate factor" by monolithic composite interaction [13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21]. Both durability and strength of the HRUTWT are adequate. ...
... The complexity of the job (bridge in use with movements/vibrations) in combination with the relatively new method of rehabilitation made placing more difficult than foreseen. Additional tests performed at the Delft University of Technology with attention to the placebility, shrinkage and use of internal curing compounds have shown promising results for placing with slipform pavers on new rehabilitation projects [15,16]. ...
... These investigations have been carried out through linear elastic studies and experiments. Numerical simulations on an orthotropic steel bridge deck has been reported by Buitelaar et al. (2004). This study shows a stress reduction factor of 21 in the steel plate near the rib. ...
Over the past years, with increasing traffic volumes and higher wheel loads, fatigue damage in steel parts of typical orthotropic steel bridge decks has been experienced on heavily trafficked routes. A demand exists to find a durable system to increase the fatigue safety of orthotropic steel bridge decks. A solution might be to enhance the stiffness of the traditional orthotropic bridge deck by using a cement-based overlay. In this paper, an orthotropic steel bridge deck stiffened with a cement-based overlay is analyzed. The analysis is based on nonlinear fracture mechanics, and utilizes the finite-element method. The stiffness of the steel deck reinforced with an overlay depends highly on the composite action. The composite action is closely related to cracking of the overlay and interfacial cracking between the overlay and underlying steel plate (debonding). As an example, a real size structure, the Farø bridges located in Denmark, are analyzed. The steel box girders of the Farø bridges spans 80 m, and have a depth of 3.5 m, and a width of 19.5 m. The focus of the present study is the top part of the steel box girders, which is constructed as an orthotropic deck plate. Numerous factors can influence the cracking behavior of the cement-based overlay system. Both mechanical and environmental loading have to be considered, and effects such as shrinkage, temperature gradients, and traffic loading are taken into account. The performance of four overlay materials are investigated in terms of crack widths. Furthermore, the analysis shows that debonding is initiated for a certain crack width in the overlay. The load level where cracking and debonding is initiated depends on the stress-crack opening relationship of the material.
... The bridge area concerned were two traffic lanes with a total width of 6.70 m and a length of 80 m in one traffic direction. During this period the entire project had to be executed, including re-routing the traffic, removal of the asphalt wearing course, inspection and repair of the deck plate and the application, finishing, hardening, curing and shot blasting of the UTHRHPC overlay [20,21]. All this was executed (from the first step up to re-opening to traffic) within five days. ...
Heavily and intensely loaded orthotropic steel bridges suffer from fatigue cracks in the
deck plate. Periodical repair is a costly measure that doesn’t solve the basic structural
problems. A heavily reinforced ultra high strength concrete overlay bonded to the deck
plate might reduce steel stresses because it increases the “plate factor” by monolithic
composite interaction. The service life of a bridge can thus be extended considerably.
Research projects were carried out to define the material properties of the overlay and to
calculate its steel stress reducing effect. FE-calculations demonstrated that stresses might
be reduced by a factor 4-5.
During the research a pilot project on a bridge was carried out. Ongoing research
resulted in the development of a new concrete mixture suited to be applied by a slipform
paver instead of the traditional vibration screed. This mixture demonstrated improved
properties since the intense compacting by the paver enabled a reduction of the
water/binder-ratio and an increase of the aggregate content. Moreover, the use of a paver
resulted in a considerable increase of the production capacity.
Full-scale rehabilitation projects on several bridges were executed. Both vibration
screeds and a slipform paver were used. On-site measurements and observations
demonstrated that controlled storage of the mixture’s material is crucial to obtain consistent fresh concrete properties. The demands with regard to the surface smoothness are difficult to be met when a vibration screed is used. However, this could partly be solved when applying an additional top layer to meet skid resistance demands. This top layer also seems to be required when a slipform paver is used.
