Impacts of Vehicle Fires on Polymer Concrete Bridge Deck Overlays

Polymer concrete (PC) has become a popular choice for deck overlays on new and existing bridges. However, PC's high sensitivity to elevated temperatures, and the significant difference between its thermal expansion coefficient and that of the concrete substrate, have prompted concerns that vehicle fires may degrade or even completely destroy PC bridge deck overlays. With the wider aim of enhancing such overlays' vehicle-fire resistance, the proposed research will investigate such fires' specific impacts on them, both through a real vehicle-fire test on a large reinforced concrete (RC) panel protected by a PC overlay, and through overlay-performance tests before and after the vehicle-fire test. Then, based on the test data, effective preventive design/construction methods and post-fire repair strategies for PC bridge deck overlays will be proposed, and tested on medium-sized RC panels under controlled heating-cooling conditions. It is expected that applying the resulting recommendations in real projects will enhance the vehicle-fire resistance of PC bridge deck overlays, and thus reduce transportation interruptions due to vehicle fires.

• Record URL:
  https://www.mountain-plains.org/research/details.php?id=560

Language

• English

Project

• Status: Active
• Funding: $160000
• Contract Numbers:

  69A3551747108

• Sponsor Organizations:

  Office of the Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology

  University Transportation Centers Program
  Department of Transportation
  Washington, DC  United States  20590
• Managing Organizations:

  Mountain-Plains Consortium

  North Dakota State University
  Fargo, ND  United States  58108
• Project Managers:

  Tolliver, Denver

• Performing Organizations:

  Civil & Environmental Engineering Department

  Utah State University
  Logan, UT  United States 
• Principal Investigators:

  Ni, Shua

  Sorensen, Andrew

• Start Date: 20210824
• Expected Completion Date: 20240731
• Actual Completion Date: 0
• USDOT Program: University Transportation Centers Program
• Source Data: MPC-663

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Bridge decks; Concrete bridges; Concrete overlays; Fire resistance; Materials at high or low temperatures; Polymer concrete; Reinforced concrete; Thermal expansion; Vehicle fires
• Subject Areas: Bridges and other structures; Highways; Materials; Pavements; Safety and Human Factors;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01781477
• Record Type: Research project
• Source Agency: Mountain-Plains Consortium
• Contract Numbers: 69A3551747108
• Files: UTC, RIP
• Created Date: Sep 9 2021 7:41PM