Date of Graduation

1995

Document Type

Dissertation/Thesis

Abstract

Advances in manufacturing and design of fiber reinforced polymers (FRP) have led to the production of profiles that can be used as temporary or permanent replacements for bridge decks as modules. The main objective of this research is to study the performance of mass-produced, fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) shapes and their joints under static loads at a coupon, component, and system level and propose methodologies to analyze and design modular FRP bridge decks. An extensive experimental and analytical program was carried out to obtain and compare coupon and component properties (strength, stiffness, failure modes) of pultruded structural shapes and their connections (joint efficiency and stiffness), and test modular FRP decks supported by steel stringers. Our research results indicate that the majority of properties (except bending stiffness) of pultruded shapes and connections, obtained at a component level, correlated better with system level results than coupon level results. Mechanical (anchor-bolts) and epoxy adhesive connections, used to connect deck and stringers, exhibited 50% and 85% joint efficiencies, respectively. However, low mechanical connector stiffness limited the composite action between deck and stringers to 39%. Transverse load distribution of a deck-stringer system varied within typical numbers but low longitudinal stiffness of multi-cellular FRP deck limited the load transfer from deck panel-to-panel and deck deflections. Use of diagonal stiffeners, in the FRP cellular deck, reduced load distribution factors resulting in a decrease in maximum deck deflections of 30%. A simplified, layered beam theory model (SLBT) was proposed for prediction of bending stiffness of pultruded FRP shapes presenting excellent comparison with other theoretical codes and experimental results. Semi-empirical and empirical models were used for prediction of joint strength and stiffness while orthotropic plate theory (macro-approach) was used to predict system behavior and correlation with experimental results was good. This work presented a detailed methodology to experimentally and theoretically evaluate the performance of FRP shapes and connections with emphasis on comparison between coupon-component and system levels. Analysis of experimental results and evaluation of theoretical predictions highlighted specific items that need to be improved so that an optimum configuration FRP bridge deck could be reached.

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