Study on the Adaptability of Vehicle Loads in Special Lanes for Trucks on Highway Bridges

Abstract

To study the adaptation of the current automobile design load of highway bridges in China in case of separation of passenger cars and trucks, a statistical method is proposed in this paper to study the load data of special lanes for trucks. Four typical truck-based lanes were selected as the study object, from which information of continuous truck fleet was selected as the study of truck-specific lane load flow samples, and technical parameters of truck vehicles were determined. Finally, the load flow was introduced into simply supported bridges and continuous bridges of different spans, and the load effect at the control section was calculated and compared with the effect of the design load at the control section according to the current code. The results show that under the operation mode of “passenger car and truck separation,” when the truck fleet passes through the simple support beam, the load effect at the control section generally does not exceed the effect of the vehicle load calculated according to the code design load. When the truck fleet passes through the continuous beam, the midspan bending moment of the continuous beam side span and the midspan bending moment of the middle span do not exceed the effect of the vehicle load calculated according to the code design load. However, the bending moment effect of the continuous beam support section exceeds the effect of the vehicle load calculated according to the design load of the code. To ensure the safety and durability of the bridge structure, the proposed lane load standard value is increased by 1.1 times and rounded up from the current Highway Bridge and Culvert Design Code.