Wisconsin Study on the Impact of OSOW Vehicles on Complex Bridges

The use of special purpose highway vehicles, over the legal limit in size and in weight, is increasing as industry grows and large items must be shipped over highways. The freight on those vehicles includes pressure vessels and transformers used in power plants, boilers, military hardware, and more recently components for wind turbine construction. Such vehicles may weigh 5 to 6 times the normal legal truck weight. The Wisconsin Department of Transportation (WisDOT) is asked to provide special permits for the vehicles along a specified pathway. Because of the unusual configuration of the vehicles, it is a time consuming job for the agency since simple analysis methods for determining effects on complex bridges subjected to those overloads are not well established and the possibility of errors in estimating the impact of the loads on these structures could affect safety. A simplified analysis method to predict the effects of overload vehicles on normal girder span bridge systems has been successfully developed through a project sponsored by the Center for Freight and Infrastructure Research (CFIRE) working with WisDOT. The work proposed in this project aims to help WisDOT in evaluating the impact of oversize over weight (OSOW) vehicles on the unusual complex bridges in the State.

• Record URL:
  http://www.wistrans.org/cfire/research/projects/08-03/

Language

• English

Project

• Status: Completed
• Funding: $270000.00
• Contract Numbers:

  DTRT12-G-UTC19

  CFIRE 08-03

• Sponsor Organizations:

  Research and Innovative Technology Administration

  University Transportation Centers Program
  1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE
  Washington, DC  United States  20590
• Performing Organizations:

  University of Wisconsin, Madison

  Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
  1415 Engineering Drive
  Madison, WI  United States  53706
• Principal Investigators:

  Adams, Teresa

  Oliva, Michael

• Start Date: 20130601
• Expected Completion Date: 0
• Actual Completion Date: 20160330
• Source Data: RiP Project 34263

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Bridges; Freight traffic; Heavy vehicles; Oversize loads; Overweight loads; Permits; Traffic loads; Trucking
• Geographic Terms: Wisconsin
• Subject Areas: Bridges and other structures; Data and Information Technology; Freight Transportation; Highways;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01481783
• Record Type: Research project
• Source Agency: National Center for Freight and Infrastructure Research and Education (CFIRE)
• Contract Numbers: DTRT12-G-UTC19, CFIRE 08-03
• Files: UTC, RiP
• Created Date: May 22 2013 1:00AM