A Heavy Duty Composite Bridge Made of Glass/ Polyester Pultruded Box Beams
摘要整理
Abstract The present work deals with the design and construction of a vehicle bridge made of glass reinforcedpolyester pultruded box beams.The bridge is of 12 m span and 4m width and represents a single strip-loading lane. The load bearingcapacity of the bridge is 300 kN and an overall design factor of 3 has been used. The composite bridgeis consisted by a 3-D truss structure made of two layer one-shot, thick wall FRP longitudinal boxelements of hollow square cross section, which are bridged together with box-beams of the samegeometry.A continuous monitoring of the structural integrity of the composite bridge has been scheduled byusing vibration analysis techniques and periodic Acoustic Emission monitoring. The total weight ofthe composite bridge does not exceed the 135 kN while its expected service life is 50 years. Introduction The use of low cost composites in construction consists a major challenge for both the engineers andthe Plastic Industry. Although composite materials behave in a completely different manner inconstructions compared to the traditionally used materials (cement and steel) and do not offer the largeplastic deformation zones, they have a number of advantages such as high specific stiffness andstrength, excellent corrosion resistance and low maintenance cost, which under certain circumstancesmake them very attractive for applications in construction industry. These advantages have motivatedseveral research groups to consider Fiber Reinforced Plastics (FRP) as an alternative material forbridge construction.The application of FRP materials in bridge construction industry may be divided in [1]• Retrofitting schemes to repair and upgrade bridge components [2,3],• Design of replacement bridge components [3-5] and• Design and construction of new bridge structures either for pedestrians or highway applicationsfabricated from FRP [1, 6-10].During the last decade FRP bridges have become increasingly popular. At first, mainly bridges forpedestrians and light traffic were designed and built. Recently, also heavily loaded bridges have beenaccomplished in FRP. Among them the first FRP bridge that carries trucks in UK with an 8.2 m spanand 4.34 m width crosses the Stroudwater Canal [7] and the Lockheed Martin Corporation bridge [6],