Experimental assessment of flexural strength and serviceability of prestressed SCC bridge I-girders with composite decks

Abstract

This paper examines the flexural behavior of prestressed Self-Consolidating Concrete (SCC) bridge I-girders when subjected to monotonic and cyclic loading. Three full-scale prestressed bridge girders were constructed with limestone aggregate concrete and tested until failure. One of the girders was made with Conventional Concrete (CC) and served as a control specimen, while the other two girders were made with SCC. The girders were fitted with composite CC thickening over the top flange to represent composite bridge decks. The control girder and one of the SCC girders were subjected to monotonically increasing load until failure. The remaining SCC girder was subjected to a sequence of cyclic loads with increasing load amplitudes until failure. The results show that prestressed SCC and CC bridge girders exhibit similar flexural stiffness and strength and that the current code methods for determining transfer length, effective prestress, flexural strength, and flexural stiffness can be used for prestressed SCC girders.