Abstract
A comparative study of two pre-stressed girder bridges, one with AASHTO (American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials) Type III girders and the other with new FIB (Florida I-beam) girders, is presented. FIB girders are expected to provide increased lateral stiffness, higher load carrying capacity, cost-efficiency and better reliability. In this paper, the first bridge that is analyzed is a 3-span bridge designed with six AASHTO Type III girders, and the second bridge has four FIB girders with the same span length, width and girder depth. The bridges are analyzed for Florida state legal loads SU4 and C5. Both bridges are analyzed using a sophisticated finite element method. The deflections, moment envelopes, section capacity and live load rating of the two bridges are obtained and compared. FIB girders have higher vertical stiffness, higher section capacity providing higher load rating than the AASHTO girders.
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