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Research Reports |
| Title: | Approach for Establishing Approximate Load Carrying Capacity for Bridges with Unknown Material and Unknown Design Properties |
| Authors: | Zach Taylor, Omar Amini, John W. van de Lindt, and Doug Allen |
| University: | Colorado State University |
| Publication Date: | Jul 2011 |
| Report #: | MPC-11-236 |
| Project #: | MPC-326 |
| TRID #: | 01353830 |
| Keywords: | bearing capacity, inspection, load factor, prestressed concrete bridges, structural analysis |
| Type: | Research Report – MPC Publications |
There are 16 small to medium simple span bridges in Larimer County that are currently load rated solely based on visual inspections. Most of these bridges are prestressed concrete bridges. The objective of this project is to load rate these bridges using structural analysis with very little to no information available related to their design. Larimer County provided everything available, which essentially was very limited plans and inspection reports for the bridges. The plans lacked details concerning prestress, cross-section dimensions, and material properties. The bridge (prestress concrete) manufacturer does not have records of the bridges built in the 1960s or earlier. Due to these limitations, a basic structural analysis was performed using a program developed for CDOT in 2007 with rating-conservative assumptions in order to determine the capacities of the bridges. The influence of these assumptions on the conclusions is also discussed.
Taylor, Zach, Omar Amini, John W. van de Lindt, and Doug Allen. Approach for Establishing Approximate Load Carrying Capacity for Bridges with Unknown Design Properties, MPC-11-236. North Dakota State University - Upper Great Plains Transportation Institute, Fargo: Mountain-Plains Consortium, 2011.
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