Advisory Committee Chair
Nasim Uddin
Advisory Committee Members
Ian Hosch
Jason Kirby
Document Type
Thesis
Date of Award
2013
Degree Name by School
Master of Science in Civil Engineering (MSCE) School of Engineering
Abstract
ABSTRACT The United States Congress is currently considering legislation which would allow states to increase truck weights on Interstates from 80,000 to 97,000 pounds. While this legislation may decrease transportation costs, as well as increase safety and benefit the environment, it may cause serious damage to bridges. Currently, out of 600,000 bridges in the United States, 65,000 are considered "structurally deficient", where at least one major component needs rehabilitation or replacement. Approximately 8,000 are considered "fracture critical", where no redundancy exists and collapse will occur if one critical component fails. The average age of a bridge in the United States is 42 years. There is no doubt that the proposed increase of truck weight may cause additional damage, therefore a thorough analysis and study must be conducted in order to prevent disaster. The main objective of this study involves analyzing the shear and moment effects of different trucks on a three dimensional field calibrated bridge, in order to determine the most or least damage caused by each truck on different types of bridges with varying spans. This method was accepted after developing a two dimensional field calibrated bridge based on an actual experiment on a US 78 bridge. The proposed models consist of a single span bridge supported by two abutments at each end of the span. Both pre stressed concrete and a steel girder bridge models were considered in the analysis, each with different spans. Eight different trucks with varying lengths and weights were considered. Using CSiBridge software, both bending moment values and applied shear forces were calculated for internal and external girders of the bridge.
Recommended Citation
Abdel Kader El Merhebi, Hicham, "Study Of Impact And Solutions Of Increasing Vehicles Weight" (2013). All ETDs from UAB. 946.
https://digitalcommons.library.uab.edu/etd-collection/946