COMPARATIVE STUDY OF FINITE ELEMENT

ANALYSIS AND GRILLAGE ANALYSIS OF BOX

GIRDER BRIDGE

Rama Chandra Bhairavarasu

M.Tech. Scholar, Department of Civil Engineering
NIT Raipur, India

Dr. Umesh Kumar Dewangan

Professor, Department of Civil Engineering
NIT Raipur, India

Abstract

Box girder bridges are popular mainly due to their better stability, serviceability, economy, and
structural efficiency. Box girder bridges are one of the best options for bridge with span of more
than 25 m in length. In this paper, complete finite element analysis of box girder bridge is done
using MATLAB. The bending moments, Shear force and reactions are found for a box girder
bridge with a span of 50m. MATLAB codes are written for dead load, Live loads (which include
70R loading and class AA loading), coordinates for wheel loads, boundary conditions. Also,
grillage analysis of the box girder bridge for different vehicle loads is done using MATLAB. In
this paper, there is a thorough set of guidelines for the grillage idealization of the structure.
Guidance is provided on the mesh layout. Analysis is done for the nodes which are at the
intersection of the gridlines. This grillage analysis is also done in STAAD PRO. Then the results
obtained from finite element analysis are the compared with results obtained from Grillage analysis
using MATLAB and STAAD.Pro. Grillage analysis when compared with finite element analysis
is easier to use and to comprehend.

Keywords: Box girder bridge, Grillage analysis, Comparative study, Grillage idealization, Wheel
loads