Bridge

Engineering

Lecture 6
Concrete Girder Bridges
Shouxin Wu, PhD

Southwest Jiaotong University

Lecture 6 Concrete Girder Bridges Bridge Engineering

Conventional cross-sections of
railway bridges
Slab-shape
 Suitable for the railway bridges,
where L ≤ 6 m
 When 6 m < L ≤ 16 m, thicker
slabs are needed
П-shape
 Four bearings which are difficult to
lie in the same plane, and needs
much formwork, had not been used
since 1980’s.
T-shape
 Standard form of the railway
reinforced concrete girder for L > 6
m.
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Lecture 6 Concrete Girder Bridges Bridge Engineering

Cross-sections of high-speed railway bridges

Box-shape cross-section

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Lecture 6 Concrete Girder Bridges Bridge Engineering

Cross-sections of highway bridges

Slab-shape

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Lecture 6 Concrete Girder Bridges Bridge Engineering

Cross-sections of highway bridges (cont’d)

T-shape

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Lecture 6 Concrete Girder Bridges Bridge Engineering

Cross-sections of highway bridges (cont’d)

Box-shape

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Lecture 6 Concrete Girder Bridges Bridge Engineering

Railway bridge example

T-shape bridge (L=16 m)

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Lecture 6 Concrete Girder Bridges Bridge Engineering

Highway bridge example

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Lecture 6 Concrete Girder Bridges Bridge Engineering

A Highway bridge of L=29.16 m

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Lecture 6 Concrete Girder Bridges Bridge Engineering

Popular cross-sections

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Lecture 6 Concrete Girder Bridges Bridge Engineering

Design of Deck slab

Distribution of wheel loads in highway bridge
deck slab

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Lecture 6 Concrete Girder Bridges Bridge Engineering

Distribution of wheel loads in railway bridge deck

slab (units in cm)

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Lecture 6 Concrete Girder Bridges Bridge Engineering

Design of deck slab

 One-way slabs
la lb ≥ 2
 Two-way slabs
la lb ≤ 2

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- 13 - Chengdu, China
Lecture 6 Concrete Girder Bridges Bridge Engineering

Effective width of the deck slab – one way slab

M – the total bending moment

at the mid-span of
the slab due to wheel loads

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- 14 - Chengdu, China
Lecture 6 Concrete Girder Bridges Bridge Engineering

Effective width of the deck slab – one-way slab (cont’d)

 Provisions from Chinese Highway design codes
If wheel loads located on the mid-span of the slab
 For one wheel load

 For multiple wheel loads

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Lecture 6 Concrete Girder Bridges Bridge Engineering

Effective width of the deck slab – one-way slab (cont’d)

 Provisions from Chinese Highway design codes
If wheel loads located on the supports

If wheel loads located near the supports

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Lecture 6 Concrete Girder Bridges Bridge Engineering

Effective width of the deck slab – overhanging slab

 Provisions from Chinese Highway design codes
If the wheel load is far away from the free end of the slab
for c ≤ 2.5 m
If the wheel load is located near the free end of the slab

Note: If c > 2.5 m , the

bending moment at the fixed
end of the overhanging slab
should be increased to
1.15~1.30 times.

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Lecture 6 Concrete Girder Bridges Bridge Engineering

Effective width of the slab for tracked vehicles

 For tracked vehicles, take a unit width strip of the slab along the direction
of the track for design. The load density on the strip is the actual load of
the tracked vehicle.

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Lecture 6 Concrete Girder Bridges Bridge Engineering

Moments in deck slabs

Continuous deck slabs
 Deck is neither rigidly supported by the web, nor simply
supported with the web.
The deck is elastically supported with the web.

Rigidly supported Elastically supported Simply supported

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Lecture 6 Concrete Girder Bridges Bridge Engineering

Design calculation of moments in deck slabs

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Lecture 6 Concrete Girder Bridges Bridge Engineering

Design calculation of moments in deck slabs

t 1
If ≤ , the girder’s torsional stiffness is large, take
H 4
M mid = 0.5M 0
M support = −0.7 M 0
t 1
If H ≥ 4 , the girder’s torsional stiffness is small, take
M mid = 0.7 M 0

M support = −0.7 M 0

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Lecture 6 Concrete Girder Bridges Bridge Engineering

Load distribution over the one-way deck slab

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