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Experimental and finite element analysis of a damaged reinforced concrete bridge strengthened with sprayed glass fiber reinforced polymers

University of British Columbia

A vast number of bridges throughout North America are deteriorated or distressed to such a degree that structural strengthening and rehabilitation of the bridge or lowering the allowable truck loading on the bridge by load posting has become necessary to extend the service life of the bridge. One of the most recent techniques of strengthening these type of bridges is placement of Sprayed Glass Fiber Reinforced Polymers. Safe Bridge is the first bridge in the world that was retrofitted by Sprayed Fiber Reinforced Polymers. This paper presents the experimental and finite element analysis of the Safe Bridge prior to and after the application of Sprayed GFRP. The truck loading was applied to the bridge model at different locations, as in an actual bridge test. The nonlinear analyses were carried out by ANSYS. A good agreement between model and tests was obtained. Thus, FEM models can be effectively utilized for analyzing and designing strengthening strategies.

Thesis/Dissertation

application/pdf

2009-11-25

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http://hdl.handle.net/2429/15770

Civil Engineering

University of British Columbia

UBCV

DSpace