Methods of Evaluating the Redundancy of Steel Bridges
Record Type: DOT
Bridges that are classified as failure critical by AASHTO require more frequent inspections than other types of bridges, resulting in greater costs for their design and operation. These higher costs are justified if the use of such bridges does indeed pose a greater risk to the traveling public in comparison to other bridge types. However, several historical events involving the failure of main load-carrying members in steel bridges have demonstrated the ability of bridges to have significant reserve load carrying capability. For example, the girder failure of the I-79 Bridge at Neville Island in Pittsburgh in 1977 and the Hoan Bridge in Milwaukee in 2000 have shown that severe damage can occur without necessarily resulting in bridge collapse. Consequently, research is needed to characterize and define the different redundancies that can be safely incorporated into the evaluation of failure-critical bridges. With such information, it may be possible to modify inspection procedures and bridge classifications so that costs are dramatically reduced. The proposed project will develop guidelines for modeling a bridge’s behavior after failure of a critical component. The research will include nonlinear structural modeling coupled with laboratory testing to validate analysis predictions. Modeling guidelines will be developed that can be used by Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) engineers and their consultants to evaluate the behavior of steel bridges with critical structural components.
Start date: 2005/9/1
End date: 2009/8/31
Status: Terminated
Contract/Grant Number: 9-5498
Source Organization: Texas Department of Transportation
Date Added: 09/02/2005
Index Terms: Steel, Bridges, Inspection, Load factor, Bridge design, Collapse strength, Failure analysis, Redundancy, Evaluation and assessment, Research projects, Texas,
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University of Texas, Austin
Center for Transportation Research, 3208 Red River, Suite 200
Autsin, TX 78712-1075
USA
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Williamson, Eric
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