Behavior Of Curved Composite Box Girders

The number of bridges in cities and on highways IS mcreasmg as a result of the increase in traffic volume. Some of these bridges are curved inplan and supported on different levels due to the topology of the site and theeconomic and structural requirements. The objective of this study is to provideinformation about the behavior of curved composite box girder bridges.Therefore experimental study on the curved composite steel box girders iscarried out to investigate its behavior till failure. The experimental programincludes nine composite models and executed in the Heavy StructuralLaboratory, Mansoura University. All tested models have a total length equal2600 mm, while the tested span is 2400 mm. The studied parameters are thehorizontal angles of curvature, the vertical slope between the supports, thesuper elevation (i.e. the slope of the cross-section), the corrugated steel websand the thickness of the steel flanges. However, the measured experimentalresults are the yield and ultimate loads, the vertical and horizontal deflections,the angles of twist and strains in the longitudinal and transverse directions atthe surfaces of reinforced concrete slab, steel webs and steel flanges.Nonlinear finite element analysis was performed usmg theCOSMOSM/M program. The results of the finite element analysis werecompared with that of the experimental work. A good agreement for the takenfinite element model with the experimental one was achieved. The finiteelement model was used for additional extension work to study the behavior ofthe curved composite box girder bridges. The effect of the angle of curvature,the type of the applied loads and the arrangement of the intermediatediaphragms on the total normal stresses including bending normal stresses anddistortional warping normal stresses was investigated. Also, the verticaldeflections of the inner and outer junctions of the cross-section are presentedfor different cases of loading and different locations of the intermediate crossdiaphragms.