RC Bridge Span Composed of 3D Prefabricated Steel Truss as a Self-supporting Formwork

Abstract

The hereby discussed bridge span consists of steel truss elements prepared in a workshop, equipped with corrugated sheets, which make formwork for a concrete bridge deck slab. Truss elements, of which the upper chord makes reinforcement of bridge deck slab, will be supplied to the construction site in their final form, and then placed on pre-executed abutments. Truss elements placed side by side will assume the role of a self-supporting structure for execution of concrete bridge deck slab made of fresh concrete mixture. After hardening of concrete in the deck slab, the bridge span will create a steel-RC truss composite element, where:•the upper part of the steel truss element is the bridge deck slab reinforcement which carry the service loads of the bridge,•the bottom part of the steel truss element (not braced), together with RC deck slab is the composite truss-slab load carrying structure of the bridge span.After hardening of the concrete, the whole span works as a 3D truss-slab structure supported by rubber bearings. This solution represents a high potential in executing and it significantly speeds up the process of construction of the bridge.