Browsing by Subject "Precast"
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Item In-plane shear strength and stiffness of precast concrete panels(2015-12) McCammon, Victoria Elizabeth; Helwig, Todd Aaron, 1965-; Clayton, PatriciaPre-Cast-Panels (PCP) have been used for decades as stay-in-place forms to support the wet concrete during the placement of bridge decks and as part of the composite slab for typical straight bridges. The typical connection detail in Texas is to set the panel on a foam bedding strip, leaving a ledge for the slab concrete to flow under; this ledge provides the long-term support for the panel. The PCP is not structurally connected to the bridge until the slab has set up; it provides no in-plane shear resistance under construction loads, when the superstructure is the most vulnerable to lateral forces. If the PCP is connected to the girders during deck casting they can provide bracing to the top flanges of the beams and forces in the traditional lateral resisting system can be reduced, potentially leading a reduction in the number of cross-frames and top lateral truss member sizes. The objective of this research is to measure the in-plane shear strength and stiffness of PCP attached to girder systems using different connections and to determine the stability of the traditional connection method with respect to in-plane shear movement. The research included testing conventionally reinforced full scale PCP in a shear frame. The typical Texas detail was tested at three different bedding strip heights. Variations of two additional connection methods were tested to determine their behavior. Bolting the PCP to the shear studs provides only a small in-plane shear stiffness and strength. Welding the PCP to a steel shape that is welded to the top flange of the beam provides a much stronger and stiffer connection.Item Short-term and time-dependent stresses in precast network arches(2015-08) Yousefpoursadatmahalleh, Hossein; Helwig, Todd Aaron, 1965-; Bayrak, Oguzhan, 1969-; Jirsa, James O; Williamson, Eric B; Mear, Mark EDue to their structural efficiency and architectural elegance, concrete arches have long been used in bridge applications. However, the construction of concrete arches requires significant temporary supporting structures, which prevent their widespread use in modern bridges. A relatively new form of arch bridges is the network arch, in which a dense arrangement of inclined hangers is used. Network arches are subjected to considerably smaller bending moments and deflections than traditional arches and are therefore suitable for modern, accelerated construction methods in which the arches are fabricated off-site and then transported to the bridge location. However, service-level stresses, which play a critical role in the performance of the structure, are relatively unknown for concrete network arches and have not been sufficiently investigated in the previous research on concrete arches. The primary objective of this dissertation is to improve the understanding of short-term and time-dependent stresses in concrete arches, and more specifically, concrete network arches. The research presented herein includes extensive field monitoring of the West 7th Street Bridge in Fort Worth, Texas, which is the first precast network arch bridge and probably the first concrete network arch bridge in the world. The bridge consists of twelve identically designed concrete network arches that were precast and post-tensioned before they were transported to the bridge site and erected. A series of vibrating wire gages were embedded in the arches and were monitored throughout the construction and for a few months after the bridge was opened to traffic. The obtained data were processed, and structural response parameters were evaluated to support the safe construction of the innovative arches, identify their short-term and time-dependent structural behavior, and verify the modeling assumptions. The variability of stresses among the arches was also used to assess the reliability of stress calculations. The results of this study provide valuable insight into the elastic, thermal, and time-dependent behavior of concrete arches in general and concrete network arches in particular. The knowledge gained in this investigation also has broader applications towards understanding the behavior of indeterminate prestressed concrete structures that are subjected to variable boundary conditions and thermal and time-dependent effects.