Performance Deterioration of Highway Reinforced Concrete Bridges

Abstract

In the study on the reasons of property change of highway reinforced concrete (HRC) bridges, the way of collecting data from two contiguous existing HRC bridges with over 10 years which are the same of design and building synchronization begins to become an important technique. In order to investigate the effect of the effective member stiffness degradation and durability degradation induced by vehicle overload, vehicle overflow, rebar corrosion, and concrete deterioration on HRC bridges, its middle span is chosen to do static and dynamic loading test. Based on the test data in different circumstances, the working performance of two bridges was studied. In consequence, the performance of HRC bridges on stiffness degradation and durability degradation is more serious compared with the bridge under the condition of non-overloading. The results showed that the process of rebar corrosion in HRC bridges speeds up on the condition of vehicle overload and vehicle overflow on the HRC bridges, so as to decrease durability degradation, and will continuously develop as time goes on. The results are instructive for construction and maintenance bridge engineering in use.