Assessment of Traffic Load Events and Structural Effects on Road Bridges Based on Strain Measurements

Abstract

Several technical and scientific publications have been made available focussing on Bridge Weight-in-Motion (BWIM) concerning railway bridges. On the contrary, BWIM analysis on road bridges are more scarce and therefore, this work intends to provide a contribution by presenting the BWIM analysis performed on two major road bridges in Portugal – Lezíria Bridge and Pinhão Bridge. These bridges are equipped with electric and optical strain gauges, acquisi­tion systems with features that allow high sampling rates. Based on the collected data and focussing on the bridges’ life­time, a probabilistic approach to quantify extreme traffic loads was implemented using extreme distribution functions. The bridges’ behaviour to these extreme traffic loads is numerically evaluated and a comparison with the alarm levels established by the bridge designers is performed. Although the bridge’s safety is not compromised, it was concluded that the representativeness of the observation period is a critical issue and the analysis of this kind of results must be care­fully considered. A comprehensive discussion about this matter is carried out at the end of this work.

Methodology of Selection of Heavy and Oversized Freight Transportation System

“…Many researchers (Hall et al, 2007;Sousa et al, 2016;Abulizi et al, 2016;Gardziejczyk and Zabicki, 2017;Doumiati et al, 2014;Sivilevičius et al, 2017;Bartuška et al, 2016;Sivilevičius and Šukevičius 2006) examine in their works a road plan, curves marking methods, longitudinal road profile, bank, they provide a methodology for selecting the pavement structure, there are presented calculations of the road plan and longitudinal profile elements, of the designed Annual Average Daily Traffic Intensity (AADTI d ), of bank, of earthwork volumes. Given the fact that roads in most countries are divided into categories, the designed road category is determined by the designed Annual Average Daily Traffic Intensity.…”

Long-term strain measurements of traffic and temperature effects on an RC bridge deck slab strengthened with an R-UHPFRC layer

“…This approach is applicable for fatigue verification of bridges [9,10] where the effects of repeating actions are of importance. Additionally, thanks to direct monitoring, the behaviour under traffic and temperature actions can be analysed leading to better understanding of how the bridge works on the structural level, and to verify the prior assumptions [11,12].…”

“…Numerous monitoring campaigns have led to reduction of uncertainties in structural demand and thus more reliable safety verification. For example, Sousa et al [11] performed long-term strain monitoring of traffic action effects on the box girder of the Leziria Bridge. The strain gauges were compensated for the temperature expansion, but the measured temperature-induced strains were neglected.…”

Field Testing and Dynamic Analysis of Old Continuous Truss Steel Bridge

“…Bridge test is a technique to evaluate the situation of the building (Sousa et al, 2016). Bridge tests are organized in the following cases (Bačinskas et al, 2013):…”