ORCID Identifier(s)

0000-0003-0114-6071

Graduation Semester and Year

2022

Language

English

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy in Civil Engineering

Department

Civil Engineering

First Advisor

Nur Dr. Yazdani

Abstract

Bridges play a crucial role in the worldwide transportation infrastructure. According to the 2021 America’s Infrastructure Report Card, there are more than 617,000 bridges across the Nation, of which, 42% are at least 50 years old, and 7.5% are rated as structurally deficient. Repetitive loading from heavy trucks is one of the reasons that could compromise the structural integrity of bridges. The heavy trucks have a negative impact on the bridge deck as a bridge’s first line of defense is to resist the applied load. The Las Lomas Bridge [Eastbound (EB) and Westbound (WB)] carrying IH-20 over Las Lomas Pkwy, which is located in Terrel, TX, experienced deck panel failure. The bridge includes a cast-in-place (CIP) concrete deck over precast concrete panels (PCPs), and four PCPs exhibited evidence of water staining and hairline cracks with efflorescence also in addition to minor alligator cracking in the bridge, which resulted in a localized deck failure. Typically, the PCPs and CIP deck act compositely to resist the traffic load. As the two bridges were built in 1987, their decks experienced several cracks. To accurately evaluate the bridge performance, field load tests and Non-Destructive Evaluation (NDE) were conducted. NDE is a useful tool to precisely predict the bridge deck current condition and involves using Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) and Impact Echo (IE). From GPR data, the bridge deck scanning revealed that the deck top rebar cover differed from what was included in the as-built drawings. In addition, two bridge decks greatly suffered from severe delamination, which reduced the deck moment capacity. To assess the overall bridge performance in regards to composite action and load carrying capacity, a field load test was conducted by instrumenting the bridge with strain gage and rotational tiltmeter sensors. To conduct a more comprehensive study, a Finite Element Model (FEM) was prepared in ABAQUS. Since the EB and WB bridges demonstrated similar defect types, only one span of the EB bridge was considered during the FE preparation. The FE model was calibrated with field load test data to reflect the actual structure response. Various retrofitting options were carried out to investigate their effectiveness in increasing the bridge composite action and load carrying capacity.

Keywords

Non-Destructive Evaluation (NDE), Load rating, Precast concrete panels (PCPs), Cast-in-place concrete deck (CIP), Ground Penetration Radar (GPR), Impact Echo (IE)

Disciplines

Civil and Environmental Engineering | Civil Engineering | Engineering

Comments

Degree granted by The University of Texas at Arlington

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