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    <title>Research in Progress (RIP)</title>
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    <copyright>Copyright © 2026. National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.</copyright>
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    <managingEditor>tris-trb@nas.edu (Bill McLeod)</managingEditor>
    <webMaster>tris-trb@nas.edu (Bill McLeod)</webMaster>
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      <title>Research in Progress (RIP)</title>
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      <link>https://rip.trb.org/</link>
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    <item>
      <title>Precast Ductile End-Diaphragm System for Accelerated Construction of Slab-On-Girder Prestressed Concrete Bridges in Seismic Regions</title>
      <link>https://rip.trb.org/View/2221113</link>
      <description><![CDATA[In recent years, public concern about road closures resulting from new construction, replacement, or retrofit of bridges has been on the rise. The consequences of these works could be economic losses, security concerns at the construction site, costs and delay time suffered by the users, and in general problems that worsen the public perception of transportation agencies. At the same time, due to current environmental awareness, there is a concern about unnecessary use of vehicles operating on fossil fuels, in this case due to detours or traffic congestion. To reduce the impacts on the driving public and the environment, accelerated bridge construction (ABC) techniques have been gaining popularity.

In ABC projects, bridge elements or entire systems are prefabricated and erected to expedite construction (Culmo, 2011). Examples of such prefabricated elements include deck panels (Garber and Shahrokhinasab, 2019) and columns (Shafieifar et al., 2020). Prefabrication of beams and girders has been an integral part of bridge construction in the U.S. for many years (Culmo, 2011). Precast prestressed concrete (PC) girder bridges comprise a large percentage of the National Bridge Inventory (NBI). In PC bridges, end diaphragms are used to transmit loads—mainly transverse in the case of earthquakes—from the bridge superstructure to the substructure. Typically, these end diaphragms are cast-in-place concrete. Culmo (2009) notes, “The time for forming and curing of [these] connections can be significant,” motivating the need for prefabricated diaphragms for use in ABC projects. According to the investigators’ knowledge and extensive literature review, both experimental work and seismic design provisions for end diaphragms on PC girder bridges are limited despite their abundance in practice. The 2010 Chile earthquake came to demonstrate the importance of end diaphragms and the need for developing and understanding a viable and clear seismic load path in bridges (Yen et al., 2010; Marsh et al., 2015). Furthermore, for regions located in high-risk seismic zones, great care must be taken in the way the connections between precast elements are made (Marsh et al., 2011; Culmo, 2009).

In the case of steel bridges, some important distress suffered by the superstructure and mainly by the substructure during the most significant earthquakes during the last three decades that occurred worldwide has been identified (Zahrai and Bruneau, 1999a). As a proposal to solve these problems through retrofit, Zahrai and Bruneau (1999a) developed a system of ductile end- diaphragms for slab-on-girders steel bridges. They tested three types of diaphragms based on three successful bracing frames systems for steel buildings (Zahrai and Bruneau, 1999b). Furthermore, they proposed a simplified design procedure based on analytical evidence from 2-D and 3-D computational models. The solution has evolved until it became the Type 2 Global Seismic Design Strategy (GSDS) of the AASHTO Guide Specifications for LRFD Seismic Bridge Design (2011) that applies only to steel superstructures, and likewise it forms part of other important seismic design and retrofit codes in the U.S. Therefore, following the concept proposed by Zahrai and Bruneau (1999a; 1999b) for steel bridges, it would be important to develop guidelines on the behavior and detailing of precast concrete ductile end-diaphragm elements for seismic resistance. With this regard, the use of concrete ductile diaphragms as fuses (Type 2 GSDS) should be explored for the seismic lateral resistance of slab-on-girder concrete bridges. This diaphragm system should be developed to be part of ABC solutions for design of new bridges, has potential as an ABC solution for retrofitting of old infrastructure, and even could be used for a combination of both, in the case of simply supported PC girder bridges located in high-risk seismic regions.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Mon, 31 Jul 2023 00:17:08 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://rip.trb.org/View/2221113</guid>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Design of Continuity Diaphragms Following New AASHTO Provisions</title>
      <link>https://rip.trb.org/View/2078697</link>
      <description><![CDATA[Simply supported, prestressed concrete beams made continuous for live loads are more
efficient in carrying live loads, have greater moment capacity, and provide a redundant
structural system compared to those beams that remain simply supported in service.
However, this jointless system requires a more complex design that takes time-
dependent moment redistribution into account, as well as restraining moments due to
thermal gradients and differential shrinkage. Prior to 2021, AASHTO allowed a simplified
design of the continuity diaphragms for the spans, provided that the beams were at
least 90 days old and the diaphragms could resist 1.2 times the cracking moment.
However, AASHTO recently excluded this approach. Instead, engineers must calculate a
time-dependent restraint moment for every diaphragm, regardless of the age of the
beams at the time they become continuous with beams from adjacent spans.
Furthermore, the stress in the positive moment reinforcement must be less than 36 ksi,
for the purposes of mitigating any cracking occurring in that region.

Unfortunately, the revised code offers minimal guidance for calculating the restraint
moments, although AASHTO commentary does refer to two publications. However,
there are flaws in at least one of the example problems in those publications.
Furthermore, this same example is rather simplistic. Thus, the first objective of this
research is to answer whether the 90-day waiting period for the now-defunct simplified
provisions can be reinstated or even shortened. If that is not the case, the next
objective is to develop the best design approach and accompanying examples with
correct time-dependent calculations for unique, variable scenarios (including straight,
skewed, curved/chorded, and offset beams) to aid engineers in designing the
reinforcing details for the positive moment connection at the continuity diaphragm.
These objectives will be achieved through analytical modeling and large-scale testing.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Thu, 08 Dec 2022 10:46:04 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://rip.trb.org/View/2078697</guid>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>SMART Shear Keys for Tsunami/Storm Surge-Hazards Mitigation of Concrete Girder Bridges</title>
      <link>https://rip.trb.org/View/1945810</link>
      <description><![CDATA[In recent years, transportation infrastructures have been exposed to increasing hydraulic hazards, such as tsunamis and storm surges. In 2011, a devastating tsunami triggered by a Mw 9.0 earthquake struck Japan, 252 bridges were severely damaged. Most of the bridges worked normal after the earthquake load but failed after its associated tsunami loading due to the combination effect of buoyancy and overturning. Storm surges associated with the 2005 Hurricane Katrina floated and displaced many superstructures of bridges when end diaphragms and girders trapped air under water, dropping the bridge spans into water.

The goal of this multi-phase proposal is not only to prevent the floated-and-displaced bridge superstructures but also to limit the damage of bridge substructures under tsunami/storm surge events by exploring and developing a novel concept of concrete-girder bridges with Sliding, Modular, Adaptive, Replaceable, and Two-dimensional (SMART) shear keys. Each key is composed of three precast concrete modules arranged in L-shape that are horizontally and vertically post-tensioned with replaceable unbonded steel bars to form two wedged sliding surfaces. When installed next to a girder and anchored into its capbeam support, the key provides controllable horizontal and vertical friction forces during natural hydraulic hazards and regulate corresponding displacements over time. This shear key will not only constrain the displacement of the bridge superstructure under floating and overturning loads, but also dissipate hysteresis energy to enhance the safety of the bridge substructure.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Sat, 30 Apr 2022 11:47:45 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://rip.trb.org/View/1945810</guid>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>SMART Shear Keys for Multi-Hazards Mitigation of Diaphragm-Free Girder Bridges - Phase III</title>
      <link>https://rip.trb.org/View/1703754</link>
      <description><![CDATA[The goal of this multi-phase project is to prevent the out-of-plane rupture of concrete girders and flexural damage to lateral restrainers under earthquake loads and floated-and-displaced bridge superstructures under hurricane events by exploring and developing a novel concept of diaphragm-free girder bridges with Sliding, Modular, Adaptive, Replaceable, and Two-dimensional (SMART) shear keys. Each key is composed of three precast concrete modules arranged in an L-shape that are horizontally and vertically post-tensioned with replaceable unbonded steel bars to form two wedged sliding surfaces. When installed next to a girder and anchored into its capbeam support, the key provides controllable horizontal and vertical friction forces during natural hazards and regulates corresponding displacements over time.
The Phases I and II of this project were mainly focused on: 1) characterizing and modeling novel SMART shear keys under cyclic loads, 2) understanding and evaluating the effect of SMART keys on the seismic behavior of a small-scale bridge bent and a simplified highway bridge subjected to ground accelerations, 3) developing a strategy and algorithm for optimal placement of SMART shear keys, and 4) understanding and developing a similitude law of SMART shear keys for the prediction of their behavior and responses through small-scale model tests. The Phase III of this project is mainly to understand and model the tsunami behavior of bridge superstructures with SMART keys. Specifically, it will conduct small-scale model tests under broken and unbroken waves and develop the drag, lift, and moment coefficients as a function of friction force.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Thu, 30 Apr 2020 15:17:00 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://rip.trb.org/View/1703754</guid>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>UHPC connection for SDCL steel bridge system </title>
      <link>https://rip.trb.org/View/1697890</link>
      <description><![CDATA[Simple for dead load and continuous for live load (SDCL) steel bridge system has been investigated thoroughly for non-seismic and seismic areas. SDCL bridge system provides a solution for advanced bridge construction (ABC) application of steel bridges. The current detail uses a cast-in-place concrete diaphragm over the middle pier to connect the steel girder and make them continuous. Application of an SDCL steel bridge system has many advantages including eliminating field splices, eliminating expansion joints, reduced negative moment over the pier, and minimized traffic interruption. Further, encasing the ends of the girder in concrete protects the girder ends and results in enhanced service life and lower inspection and maintenance costs if compared to conventional continuous steel bridge systems. 
The current system has shortcomings that can be addressed by taking advantage of new advanced materials such as ultra-high performance concrete (UHPC). By using the current SDCL detail, although the resulting closure time for the facility carried by structure is reduced if compared to the conventional methods of steel construction, but it might exceed the weekend closure time limits that is usually available for high traffic roadways. The reason is that normal strength concrete usually reaches its minimum required strength in more than a couple of days. Another issue with the current SDCL detail is the tight tolerances for steel fabrication. As the steel girders are placed on adjacent spans in this system the end detail of the girders (steel blocks) should be touching to prevent concrete diaphragm from crushing.
UHPC has been recently widely considered for ABC applications due to its superior mechanical properties, durability and also high early strength as compared to normal concrete. However, this material is more expensive than conventional concrete so it should be utilized strategically. In this research, the use of UHPC as diaphragm material is proposed that results in decreasing construction time for the facility carried, increasing the tolerances and simplifying the cast-in-place detail of the concrete diaphragm.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Thu, 16 Apr 2020 08:58:04 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://rip.trb.org/View/1697890</guid>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>SMART Shear Keys for Multi-Hazards Mitigation of Diaphragm-Free Girder Bridges - Phase I</title>
      <link>https://rip.trb.org/View/1501809</link>
      <description><![CDATA[In recent years, ground transportation infrastructure has been exposed to an increasingly large number of natural hazards, such as earthquakes, tsunamis, and hurricanes. During the 2010 Chile Earthquake, a number of girder bridges lost spans or rotated with transverse offset, causing out-of-plane rupture of concrete girders and flexural damage to lateral restrainers. Storm surges associated with Hurricane Katrina in 2005 floated and displaced some bridge superstructures when end diaphragms and girders trapped air under water, dropping the bridge spans into water.
The goal of this multi-phase proposal is to prevent the above failures by exploring and developing a novel concept of diaphragm-free girder bridges with Sliding, Modular, Adaptive, Replaceable, and Two-dimensional (SMART) shear keys. Each key is composed of three precast concrete modules arranged in L-shape that are horizontally and vertically post-tensioned with replaceable unbonded steel bars to form two wedged sliding surfaces. When installed next to a girder and anchored into its support, the key provides controllable lateral and vertical friction forces during natural hazards and regulates corresponding displacements over time.
The first phase aims to: 1) characterize novel SMART shear keys under cyclic loads, 2) develop a friction-gap model of the shear keys for inclusion in computational modeling and simulation of bridges, and 3) understand and evaluate the effect of SMART keys on the seismic behavior of a small-scale bridge system subjected to ground accelerations. These objectives will be achieved through experimental and computational research in laboratory.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Thu, 08 Feb 2018 15:00:53 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://rip.trb.org/View/1501809</guid>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Bidiretional-Ductile End Diaphragms for Seismic Performance and Substructure Protection</title>
      <link>https://rip.trb.org/View/1334859</link>
      <description><![CDATA[This project will develop bi-directional ductile diaphragms for implementation in straight and skewed bridge superstructures to provide resistance to bidirectional earthquake excitations. Work in Stage 1 will involve non-linear time-history dynamic analyses to investigate the seismic performance of bridges with the proposed bi-directional ductile diaphragm concept, considering variations in skew, span length, reactive mass, fundamental period of vibration, and earthquake excitation characteristics. The dynamic analyses will allow investigating the impact of these parameters on global behavior as well as an understanding of the magnitude of local demands and the extent of bi-directional displacements that the hysteretic devices must be able to accommodate while delivering their ductile response. Work will also be conducted to identify effective and practical details for hysteretic energy dissipating devices. The outcome of this stage will be an understanding of expected dynamic seismic performance as a function of key design parameters, and details for the proposed energy dissipated elements to be investigated in Stage 2. Work in Stage 2 will involve scaled experiments to subject selected device and connection details to a regime of relative end-displacements representative of the results predicted from parametric analytical studies. Actual materials will be used and practical limits will be respected. The tests will be conducted in a quasi-static mode and the experiment will be designed based on the recommendations of the collaborating departments of transportation (DOTs). The outcome of this stage will be viable hysteretic devices and connections schemes, as well as a preliminarily designed prototype to provide an understanding of what would be entailed to conduct shake-table testing of a span constructed with the proposed ductile diaphragm concept. Collaborating DOTs will be solicited to contribute to shake-table testing. The final report will provide relevant data and recommended design requirements.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Wed, 10 Dec 2014 01:02:37 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://rip.trb.org/View/1334859</guid>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Lightweight Concrete Modification Factor for Shear Friction</title>
      <link>https://rip.trb.org/View/1286101</link>
      <description><![CDATA[This project is aimed at studying the influence of aggregate type on direct shear transfer across an interface of concretes cast at different times. The shear friction design concept is applicable in conditions where direct shear must be transferred across a structural concrete plane or interface, such as an existing crack or an interface between dissimilar materials or concretes cast at different times. Shear friction provisions are commonly used in the design of precast-prestressed concrete elements and connections in building and/or bridge structures including corbels, dapped double tees, beam bearings, and diaphragms. These types of connections are critical because there is little or no redundancy. Data used to develop shear friction provisions in both the ACI 318 Code and the PCI Design Handbook are predominantly from experiments with specimens constructed of normal weight concrete (NWC). Only a limited number of studies have been performed on lightweight concrete (LWC), and particularly for conditions with concrete surfaces cast at different times. This condition may exist, however, due to precast plant practices and the increasing use of self-consolidating concrete (SCC), and where projecting elements might be cast after the underlying concrete has partially hardened. Alternatively, projecting elements might be cast in advance and inserted into the fresh concrete when the main member is cast, resulting in a similar condition. It should also be noted that the influence of SCC on the interface shear has not been thoroughly studied. In summary, lack of LWC test data and clear and consistent design provisions underscore the need for a systematic approach to isolate and examine the influence of factor &amp;#955; on the interface friction so that it can be applied clearly and confidently in shear friction design.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Thu, 16 Jan 2014 01:00:24 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://rip.trb.org/View/1286101</guid>
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