STUDY OF COMPOSITE BRIDGE STRINGERS, PHASE II

Abstract

THE PHASE OF THE INVESTIGATION DESCRIBED IN THIS REPORT WAS DESIGNED TO STUDY THE BEHAVIOR OF COMPOSITE BRIDGE BEAMS AND TO CHECK THE VALIDITY OF PREDICTING THIS BEHAVIOR USING A RATIONAL NUMERICAL ANALYSIS WHICH HAS BEEN PROGRAMMED IN THE FORTRAN II LANGUAGE. EIGHT COMPOSITE BEAMS WITH WIDELY VARYING PROPERTIES WERE TESTED ALONG WITH SEVENTEEN COMPANION PUSHOUT SPECIMENS. VARIABLES INCLUDED' /A/ STEEL STRENGTH, /B/ SIZE, TYPE AND NUMBER OF SHEAR CONNECTORS, /C/ CONCRETE STRENGTH, AND /D/ TYPE OF CONCRETE /NORMAL AND LIGHTWEIGHT/. THE TEST BEAMS WERE GAGED TO MEASURE DEFLECTION, SLIP AND STRAIN AT VARIOUS LOCATIONS. A TWO- POINT CONCENTRATED LOAD WAS APPLIED IN SMALL INCREMENTS UP TO APPROXIMATELY WORKING LOAD, THEN RELEASED AND REAPPLIED UNTIL THE BEAMS FAILED. THE EXPERIMENTAL DATA WERE EVALUATED AND COMPARED WITH THE THEORETICAL BEHAVIOR PREDICTED FROM THE COMPUTER ANALYSIS. A DISCUSSION OF THIS ANALYSIS AND A PRINTOUT OF THE PROGRAM ARE APPENDED TO THE REPORT. TWO OF THE CONCLUSIONS WERE THAT 1. THE COMPUTER ANALYSIS WILL ADEQUATELY PREDICT THE BEHAVIOR OF FULL-SCALE COMPOSITE BEAMS, AND 2. THE BEHAVIOR OF COMPOSITE BEAMS UTILIZING EITHER LIGHTWEIGHT OR NORMAL-WEIGHT CONCRETE IN THE SLAB MAY BE PREDICTED EQUALLY WELL. /AUTHOR/