Strength and Performance Field Testing of Hybrid HPS Bridge A6101

Download or read book Strength and Performance Field Testing of Hybrid HPS Bridge A6101 written by Everett Ralph Oesch and published by . This book was released on 2003 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bridge A6101 near Lexington, Missouri, is the first bridge in the state to utilize High Performance Steel (HPS). The Missouri Department of Transportation (MoDOT) built Bridge A6101 as part of the Federal Highway Administration's Innovative Bridge Research and Construction (IBRC) program. By placing HPS70W in only the highly stressed regions of the girder (hybrid design), a weight savings of 17% and a cost savings of 11% was achieved compared to a conventional 50W bridge. The University of Missouri-Columbia worked with MoDOT and West Virginia University to instrument, field test, analyze, and evaluate the strength and serviceability performance of Bridge A6101. This thesis presents the results of the strength portion of the testing. A companion thesis (Davis, 2003) presents the results of the strength performance study. The objectives of this work are to examine the strength performance of Bridge A6101 compared to design theory. This is accomplished through monitoring stresses when the bridge is subjected to calibrated loading. The stress results are modified to represent the design loading and compared to design theory. It is common knowledge that actual bridge response can vary significantly from design predictions. Past research (Barker, et al., 1999) has developed procedures to qualify and quantify factors that represent the differences. These field test procedures are applied to evaluate the strength performance of HPS Bridge A6101. The results show that, unlike in the design, the exterior girders were the critical component in the experimental tests. More of the truckload was distributed to the exterior girders than design predicts. This was also confirmed by finite element analysis from West Virginia University. The experimental capacity of the exterior girder was only 87.5% of the design capacity and at or just below the HS20 legal loading.