Behavior of the Splice Regions of Spliced I-Girder Bridges

Spliced girder bridge technology continues to attract attention due to its versatility over traditional prestressed concrete highway bridge construction. Relatively limited data are available in the literature, however, for large-scale tests of spliced girders, and few studies have examined the behavior of the cast-in-place (CIP) splice regions of spliced girder bridges. In addition to limited knowledge on CIP splice region behavior, a wide variety of splice region details (e.g., mild reinforcement details, shear interface details, overall geometry, etc.) continue to be used in the field. In response to these issues, the research program described in this report was developed to (i) study the strength and serviceability behavior of the CIP splice regions of spliced I-girders, (ii) identify design and detailing practices that have been successfully implemented in CIP splice regions, and (iii) develop design recommendations based on the structural performance of spliced I-girder test specimens. To accomplish these tasks, an industry survey was first conducted to identify the best practices that have been implemented within the splice regions of existing bridges. Splice region details were then selected to be included within large-scale post-tensioned spliced I-girder test specimens. Two tests were conducted to study splice region behavior and evaluate the performance of the chosen details. Consistent with their design, the failure mechanisms of both test girders were characterized by a shear-compression failure of the web concrete with primary crushing occurring in the vicinity of the top post-tensioning duct. Most significantly, the girders acted essentially as monolithic members in shear at failure. The web crushing extended across much of the test span and was not localized within the splice regions. Based on the results of the tests, design recommendations were developed, including recommended CIP splice region details.

• Record URL:
  • https://library.ctr.utexas.edu/ctr-publications/0-6652-2.pdf
• 
• Summary URL:
  • https://library.ctr.utexas.edu/Presto/search/SearchResults_ClearCriteria.aspx?q=(catalog.ID=(33371))
• Supplemental Notes:
  • Report Date February 2015; Published March 2015. Project Title: Spliced Tx Girder Bridges.
• Corporate Authors:

  University of Texas, Austin

  Center for Transportation Research, 1616 Guadalupe Street
  Austin, TX  United States  78701-1255

  Texas Department of Transportation

  Research and Technology Implementation Office, P.O. Box 5080
  Austin, TX  United States  78763-5080

  Federal Highway Administration

  1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE
  Washington, DC  United States  20590
• Authors:
  • Williams, Chris
  • Moore, Andrew
  • Al-Tarafany, Dhiaa
  • Massey, Josh
  • Bayrak, Oguzhan
  • Jirsa, James
  • Ghannoum, Wassim
• Publication Date: 2015-3

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Edition: Technical Report
• Features: Appendices; Figures; Photos; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 265p

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Best practices; Cast in place concrete; Compressive strength; Design; Failure analysis; Girder bridges; Posttensioning; Shear properties
• Uncontrolled Terms: Spliced girders
• Subject Areas: Bridges and other structures; Design; Highways; I24: Design of Bridges and Retaining Walls;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01560468
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: FHWA/TX-15/0-6652-2, Report 0-6652-2
• Contract Numbers: 0-6652
• Files: TRIS, ATRI, USDOT, STATEDOT
• Created Date: Apr 15 2015 12:14PM