Bridge Expansion Joint in Road Transition Curve: Effects Assessment on Heavy Vehicles

Abstract

Properly-designed road surfaces provide a durable surface on which traffic can pass smoothly and safely. In fact, the main causes that determine the structural decay of the pavement and its parts are the traffic loads. These repeated actions can create undesirable unevennesses on the road surface, which induce vertical accelerations on vehicles, up to hindering contact between pavement and tire, with dangerous consequences on traffic safety. The dynamic actions transmitted by the vehicles depend on these irregularities: often, a bridge expansion joint (BEJ), introducing a necessary discontinuity between different materials, determines from the beginning a geometric irregularity in the running surface. Besides, some structural conditions could emphasize the problem (e.g., local cracking due to the settlement of the subgrade near the abutment or the discontinuity of stiffness due to the presence of different materials). When the BEJ is located in a transition curve, an inevitable vertical irregularity between road and joint can reach values of some centimeters, with serious consequences for the road safety. This paper deals with the analysis of a case study of a BEJ. Several test surveys were performed in order to fully characterize the effects on both vehicles and pavement. The three-dimensional representation of the pavement surface and the acceleration measurements on a heavy test vehicle were performed to analyze the joint behavior under traffic. Finally, a finite element model was implemented to evaluate the stress contribution on vehicle components induced by the vertical irregularities.

Transformer‐Enhanced Traffic Load Simulation for Wear Evaluation of Bridge Expansion Joint

“…Data analysis research, based on displacement gauges from structural health monitoring (SHM) systems, has been conducted. A variety of methods, including correlation ftting [3,[7][8][9][10][11], mechanical performance analysis of bridge structures [12][13][14][15], Bayesian approaches [16,17], statistical machine learning [18], and data reconstruction [19,20], have been utilized to examine the displacement patterns of BEJs for damage evaluation. Te fndings indicate that the wear damage of BEJs is primarily due to large cumulative displacements, which are signifcantly infuenced by temperature and trafc loading.…”

Impact of Variable Parameters of Expansion Joints and Bearing Supports on the Vehicle-Induced Vibration of Curved Girder Bridges

“…Deng et al [9,10] investigated the effects of EJ damage (simplified as road roughness) on the vehicle-induced dynamic response of the deck slabs of a prestressed concrete box girder bridge by using a proposed multi-degree-of-freedom vehicle model, and indicated that the EJ damage can increase the vehicle-induced impact on the deck slabs and EJ. Di et al [11] constructed a three-dimensional numerical analysis model of an EJ system and then investigated the dynamic response and damage state of an EJ under heavy vehicle loads. Li et al [12] carried out the field testing of 150 EJs and pointed out the diseases of EJs commonly experience, which would aggravate the vehicle-induced impact response of the EJs and the side bridge.…”

Experimental Study of Bridge Expansion Joint Damage Based on Natural Frequency

“…In past studies, many scholars have studied bridge expansion joints [ 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 , 11 , 12 , 13 , 14 , 15 ]. Winkler et al [ 16 ] proposed a method to collect bridge expansion joint data.…”