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Article history: The instability of precast prestressed concrete bridge girders during construction have been of particular
Received 10 December 2010 concern to bridge engineers. After they are installed on bearing supports, prestressed concrete girders are
Revised 20 January 2012 immediately subjected to environmental thermal loads that may be exacerbated by fabrication and con-
Accepted 8 April 2012
struction errors. Thus, in this research, the environmental thermal loads, which cause extremes in ther-
mal deformations in precast prestressed concrete girders, were determined. Then a three-dimensional
nonlinear nite element sequential analysis procedure was developed to evaluate the behavior of a pre-
Keywords:
cast prestressed concrete girder subjected to both thermal loads and geometry and support imperfections
Precast prestressed concrete
AASHTO-PCI standard girder
during each construction stage. This analysis indicated instability in a 30-m long prestressed concrete BT-
Thermal effects 1600 girder when total lateral deformation in the middle height of the girder at mid-span exceeded about
Elastomeric bearing 25 cm.
Nonlinear nite element 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
0141-0296/$ - see front matter 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.engstruct.2012.04.003
2 J.-H. Lee / Engineering Structures 42 (2012) 18
1 1
h p i
T air t T max T min T max T min sin t 9 2
2 2 12
p
cos w cos ws
I t H a b cos w 1
24 sin ws ws cos ws
3. 3D nonlinear nite element thermal response analysis With the dened geometry of the bearing pad, the compressive
modulus of bearing pad was calculated using the stress and strain
3.1. 3D nite element model curve given in the AASHTO LRFD Bridge Design Specications [5].
Since elastomeric bearings become stiffer as strain increases, the
Based on the preliminary design referen ce given in the PCI stiffness of the vertical bearings was dened as a bi-linear relation-
Bridge Design Manual [2], the BT-1600 girder was designed to be ship with one inection point at 0.028 compressive strain. That is,
30 m long with a concrete compressive strength of 48 MPa, girder the compressive modulus of the elastomeric bearing pad, Es, is ini-
spacing of 1.8 m, and 24 low relaxation strands of 12.7 mm in tially 148 MPa up to 0.028 compressive strain, and thereafter in-
diameter. As shown in Fig. 2 , four strands were placed in the top creases to 230 MPa. The vertical stiffness of bearing pad, k, was
ange and twenty strands in the bottom ange. The strands placed then derived as follows:
in the top and bottom anges were each prestressed to 44.5 kN and
Es A
150.4 kN, respectively. k 3
The 30-m long BT-1600 girder was modeled with a total of H
350,400 linear solid elements of approximately 2.5 cm by 2.5 cm in which A is the area of the bearing pad and H the thickness of the
with 5 cm in the longitudinal direction of the girder per element bearing.
in the nite element program Abaqus [13]. The prestressing The vertical bearing stiffness was modeled using a series of non-
strands were modeled using 3D two-node truss elements and de- linear spring elements, which provide restraint only when com-
ned as embedded elements in the solid concrete elements. The pressed. The compressive stiffness of individual springs was
embedded element technique used in this study constrains the calculated using the tributary area of the springs categorized as
translational degrees of freedom of the embedded elements to corner, edge, and center spring elements according to the location
the interpolated values of the corresponding degrees of freedom of the springs within the bearing surface. Fig. 3 shows the force and
of the host solid elements. displacement relationship dened from the calculated compressive
The modulus of elasticity of the concrete used in this study was stiffness, in which k1 represents compressive strain up to 0.028 and
calculated to be 28,500 MPa using the ACI Committee 435 [14] for k2 represents that greater than 0.028. The vertical spring elements
high-strength concrete. Since the maximum tensile stress of con- used to model the bearing pads are illustrated in Fig. 4. The arrows
crete due to thermal effects
p did not exceed the allowable tensile shown in this gure represent the restrained directions at the both
stress of concrete, 0:63 fci, in which fci represents the compressive ends due to the dowel bars located in the middle of the pad.
strength of concrete, the concrete materials used in this thermal
response analysis were modeled to be linear elastic. The coefcient
3.3. Thermal responses
of thermal expansion pertaining to the thermal movement of the
girder was taken as 10.8 10 6/C [5].
(a) One end of the girder (b) Other end of the girder
Fig. 4. Finite element model with spring elements for elastomeric bearing pads and restrained conditions for dowel bars.
Fig. 6. Variations in the vertical and lateral thermal movements at the mid-span of the 30-m long prestressed BT-1600 girder under elastomeric bearing pad conditions in the
summer and the winter in Atlanta.
J.-H. Lee / Engineering Structures 42 (2012) 18 5
linear strains. The BT-1600 girder initially exhibited longitudinal Similarly, lateral thermal movement was calculated using the
compressive stresses of 5723 kPa on the top surface and lateral thermal gradients over the cross-section. However, the lat-
7584 kPa on the bottom surface at mid-span due to prestressing eral thermal gradients vary from the top to the bottom anges, so
forces and self-weight. In the summer, when the largest vertical the lateral curvature of the girder, u x, was obtained from three lat-
thermal gradients occurred, the concrete longitudinal compressive eral thermal gradients in the middle of the top ange, the web, and
stresses increased to 7791 kPa (by 36%) on the top surface and the bottom ange:
9170 kPa (by 21%) on the bottom surface. In the winter, the com- X R E a
pressive stresses on the top and bottom surfaces only slightly DT x hx xdx
i
ux 6
changed due to the smallest vertical thermal gradients. However, E Iy
the middle of the web showed higher longitudinal compressive
stresses due to larger thermal gradients in the web in the winter. in which DT( x) is the lateral thermal gradient at width x , h( x) the
The tensile stresses of the top and bottom strands only slightly depth of the girder, Iy the moment of inertia of the cross-section
changed (increased by less than 41 MPa) due to environmental with respect to the weak y-axis, and i (=1,2,3) the lateral thermal
thermal effects. gradients of the top ange, the web, and the bottom ange of the
girder, respectively.
4. Beam model for the calculation of thermal deformations
4.2. Comparison of the beam model with the 3D nite element analysis
4.1. Development of the beam model
For the BT-1600 girder, which showed the largest vertical and
Thermal strain distributions induced by environmental thermal lateral thermal gradients among the four AASHTO-PCI standard
effects are nonlinear. Because of the nonlinear thermal gradients in girder sections, this study calculated the vertical and lateral
the girders, their thermal movements are basically calculated using thermal movements in the summer and winter environmental
3D numerical analysis. Thus, based on beam theory, this study de- conditions in Atlanta using the proposed model. The length of
rived an analytical method that could calculate the vertical and the BT-1600 girder was 30 m, and the material properties of con-
thermal deformations from the nonlinear thermal gradients. crete were the same as used previously.
Fig. 7 illustrates vertical strain distributions along the depth of a The vertical and lateral thermal movements calculated using
prestressed concrete girder section caused by a nonlinear vertical the beam model were compared with those obtaine d from the
thermal gradient. The unrestrained plane section tends to expand 3D nite element thermal stress analysis for simply supported
in accordance with the vertical thermal gradient shown in boundary conditions. Fig. 8 shows that the thermal movements
Fig. 7 b. However, according to the NavierBernoulli hypothesis, calculated from the beam model correlate well with those obtained
the nal strain prole is linear, illustrated in Fig. 7 c. Thus, the ver- from the 3D nite element analysis. Differences between the max-
tical thermal deformation can be obtained by integrating the cur- imum vertical and lateral thermal movements of the beam model
vature, uy, over the length of the girder. For a simple span, the and those of the 3D nite element analysis were less than 0.08 cm
vertical deformation at mid-span, d y, is (5.3%).
Fig. 7. Strain distributions induced by a nonlinear vertical thermal gradient in a simply supported prestressed concrete girder section.
6 J.-H. Lee / Engineering Structures 42 (2012) 18
Fig. 8. Comparisons of the vertical and lateral thermal movements calculated using the beam model with those obtained from the 3D nite element analysis.
Table 1
5
Maximum vertical and lateral thermal movements of the four AASHTO-PCI standard girder sections in the summer and the winter (Units: 2.73 10
m).
a
AASHTO-PCI standard sections Max. vertical movement Max. lateral movement a Max. span (m) [2]
Summer Winter Summer Winter
Type-I 117 L2 71L2 53L2 63L2 15
Type-IV 39 L2 23L2 123L2 153L2 37
Type-V 59 L2 26L2 40L2 82L2 44
BT-1600 55 L2 20L2 40L2 83L2 40
a
L is the span of the girder in meters.
maximum lateral deformation obtained from the static analysis to The initial evaluation of the support slope on the behavior of the
a target sweep value. Since the sweep and the camber occur prior prestressed BT-1600 girder was conducted with no initial sweep.
to the placement of the girder on the bearing supports, the support The support slopes chosen for this study were 0 , 2.5 , and 5 .
boundary condition in this rst static analysis was assumed to be a The angle of 0 represents a perfectly at condition between the
simply supported condition. girder and the supports. The maximum value of the support slope
The initial sweep in the girder and the camber and stresses in- of 5 was chosen based on the maximum measured support slope
duced by prestressing forces are employed to update the geometry of 0.0079 rad. (4.5 ) on the collapsed girders in Arizona [1].
and stress states of the girder for the next analysis. Then the slope For a support slope of 5 at both ends of the girder, this study
of the bearing support is produced by applying displacement examined the vertical and lateral responses of the prestressed
boundary conditions corresponding to the support slope to the up- BT-1600 girder with increases in initial sweep at 3, 6, 9, 11, and
graded 3D nite element model. Since the support slope is a stress- 13 cm. The initial sweep of 3 cm was the sweep tolerance of
free behavior, the stress states in the concrete and prestressing 3 mm per 3 m length of prestressed concrete beam provided in
strands are the same as those dened in the rst static analysis. the PCI Bridge Design Manual [2].
Finally, the prestressed concrete girder updated from the previ-
ous analysesthe rst static analysis for the initial sweep of the 5.3. Vertical behavior of the prestressed concrete girder
girder and the effects of prestressing forces and the second static
analysis for the support slope of the girderprovides a reference
For the geometrically perfect structure, or the 30-m long BT-
conguration of the next 3D nonlinear nite element analysis. 1600 girder with no initial sweep, Fig. 10 a shows variations in
The self-weight of the girder and the thermal loads obtained from the vertical movements due to thermal loads and self-weight for
the 2D heat transfer analysis are applied to assess the behavior of
the support slope of 0 , 2.5 , and 5 . Fig. 10b shows the variations
the prestressed concrete girder during construction. This analysis
in the vertical movements of the girder with increases in the initial
accounted for the nonlinearity of the geometry and the nonlinear sweep from 3 cm to 13 cm with a constant 5 support slope. From
behavior of the elastomeric bearing pads. Fig. 10, we can see that the girder, after being installed on the bear-
ing supports, underwent slight increases in vertical movement
5.2. Structural analyses with the support slope and the initial sweep
with increases in the support slope or the initial sweep. In partic-
ular, for the initial sweep of 11 and 13 cm, the 3D nonlinear nite
Since the stability of prestressed concrete girders during con- element analysis stopped at 2 p.m. and at 10 a.m., respectively, as
struction mainly depends on their lateral behavior, the thermal shown in Fig. 10b. The failure of this numerical analysis was due
load involved in this 3D sequential nonlinear analysis was based to the larger increases in lateral movements with increases in the
on the winter environmental conditions showing the largest lateral initial sweep in the sloped girder. The lateral behavior of the girder
thermal gradients in Atlanta. Among the four AASHTO-PCI sections, with increases in the initial sweep and support slope will be dis-
this study selected the 30-m long prestressed BT-1600 girder. cussed below.
Fig. 10. Variations in the vertical movements of the 30-m long BT-1600 girder at Fig. 11. Variations in the lateral movements at the mid-height of the 30-m long BT-
mid-span with increases in (a) support slope with no initial sweep and (b) initial 1600 girder web at mid-span with increases in (a) support slope with no initial
sweep for a 5 support slope. sweep and (b) initial sweep for a 5 support slope.
8 J.-H. Lee / Engineering Structures 42 (2012) 18
5.4. Lateral behavior of the prestressed concrete girder In the following analysis, to combine thermal effects with fabri-
cation and construction errors, this study developed a 3D nite ele-
For the lateral behavior of the 30-m long prestressed BT-1600 ment sequential nonlinear analysis procedure that accounted for
girder during construction, Fig. 11 exhibit variations in the lateral the changes in the geometry and stress states of the girder. This
movements at the middle height of the girder web with increases analysis included the nonlinear behavior of the girder and the elas-
in the support slope and the initial sweep. Increases in the support tomeric bearing pads. The analyses indicated possible instability in
slope with no initial sweep, illustrated in Fig. 11 a, only slightly the 30-m BT-1600 girder when lateral deformations due to the
changed the lateral deformations due to the combination of ther- combination of thermal effects, the initial sweep, and the support
mal effects and self-weight, as was found in the vertical behavior slope exceeded about 25 cm at the middle height of the girder,
of the girder. However, with increases in the initial sweep for a close to the centroid of the girder cross-section.
constant support slope of 5 , Fig. 11 b reveals increases in the lat- In addition, this study proposed a beam model to calculate envi-
eral movements at the middle height of the web at mid-span. For ronmentally-induced vertical and lateral thermal deformations for
the 30-m long prestressed BT-1600 girder with an initial sweep simply supported girders. The vertical deformation is based on a
of 11 and 13 cm, the lateral movements were about 12 cm imme- vertical thermal gradient along the depth of the cross-section,
diately after the girder was installed on the sloped bearing support. and because the lateral thermal gradients vary from the top to
The combined thermal effects then increased the lateral move- the bottom anges, the lateral deformation is dened from three
ments, including the initial sweep of 11 cm and 13 cm, to lateral temperature gradients of the middle of the top ange, the
25.7 cm at 1 p.m. and 25.9 cm at 9 a.m., respectively, at the middle web, and the bottom ange. A comparison showed that the vertical
height of the girder web at mid-span, shown in Fig. 11b. After that, and lateral movements of the beam were within 0.08 cm (6%) of
as mentioned previously, the 3D nite element analyses halted due those determined by the 3D nite element analysis. Furthermore,
to error messages of largest increment of displacement in the lat- this study proposed simple equations for calculating the maximum
eral direction at the top ange of the girde r at mid-span and vertical and lateral thermal movements in terms of the span length
excessive distortion in solid concrete elements . According to of the girders for simply supported four AASHTO-PCI standard
the messages, the failure of this numerical solution to converge girders located in Atlanta: Type-I, Type-IV, Type-V, and BT-1600
is an indication of instability in the structure due to the large in- girders.
crease in lateral deformations. To provide more generalized conclusions on the lateral behavior
of precast prestressed concrete girders, including the initial sweep
and the support slope during conduction, the development of the
6. Conclusions and discussions 3D and simplied models should include more girders under vari-
ous environmental conditions.
Using the 3D nonlinear nite element analysis, this initial study
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