Full-scale testing of a prestressed concrete segmental bridge

Abstract

An experimental prestressed concrete segmental bridge was constructed and tested at The Pennsylvania State University. The bridge was designed as dual single-span curved girders with a length of 36.88 m (121 ft). Each girder was composed of 17 segments. The bridge was constructed in 1977, field tested at service-load levels during the summer of 1978, and tested for overloads during the summer of 1981 when one girder was tested to failure.The experimentally determined service load responses were found to be about 15% less than the corresponding finite element values. For the cases where a simplified design method was employed, the response was correspondingly greater than the finite element method. Thus, the actual structure was considerably stiffer than that predicted by theory. These results were based upon comparisons which were made for several longitudinal and transverse positions of the test vehicle.The results of an incremental loading to failure were compared with a finite element study that used Kostovos and Newman's material model for concrete. This technique models the cracking patterns and material nonlinearities of the concrete, and the results compared reasonably well in the elastic and postcracking range up to failure. A simplified classical approach also gave reasonably good results. Key words: bridges, concrete, curved beam, failure, field tests, mathematical model, nonlinear behavior, prestressed concrete.