EVALUATION OF GFRP DECK PANEL FOR THE O'FALLON PARK BRIDGE

Under the Innovative Bridge Research and Construction (IBRC) program of the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), the City and County of Denver in cooperation with the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) and FHWA built a bridge with a glass fiber reinforced polymer (GFRP) deck in O'Fallon Park, which is located west of the City of Denver. One of the main objectives of this project was to investigate the feasibility of using FRP decks for highway bridges. Hence, the FRP deck in the O'Fallon Park bridge was designed to have a configuration similar to a highway bridge deck. The GFRP deck has a sandwich construction with top and bottom faces and a honeycomb core. Because of the lack of standard design provisions and manufacturing techniques for GFRP deck C panels, studies have been conducted at the University of Colorado at Boulder to evaluate the design proposed by the manufacturer, and the load-carrying capacity and long-term performance of the selected panels as part of the IBRC program. This study has shown that the design of the GFRP deck is adequate according to the provisions of the City and County of Denver. The deck has a factor of safety of five against failure. The deck also satisfies the deflection limits stipulated in the design provisions. However, the tests and the analyses have indicated that the material orthotropy of the panel and the localized bending effect caused by the soft core can reduce the effective bending width by 25% compared to a homogenous isotropic panel. Furthermore, this and past studies have shown that the governing failure mode of this type of sandwich panel is the delamination of the upper face from the core and that there is a large scatter of the interface shear strength among the test specimens. Hence, this should be a major consideration in design.

• Record URL:
  https://www.codot.gov/programs/research/pdfs/2004/ofallanpark.pdf/
• 
• Corporate Authors:

  University of Colorado, Boulder

  Department of Civil, Environmental and Architectural Engineering
  Boulder, CO  United States  80309-0428

  Colorado Department of Transportation

  4201 E Arkansas Avenue
  Denver, CO  United States  80222

  Federal Highway Administration

  1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE
  Washington, DC  United States  20590
• Authors:
  • Camata, G
  • Shing, P B
• Publication Date: 2004-7

Language

• English

Media Info

• Features: Figures; Photos; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 178 p.

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Bearing capacity; Bending; Bridge decks; Deflection; Delamination; Design; Failure; Glass fiber reinforced plastics; Highway bridges; Interfaces; Performance; Safety; Sandwich construction; Shear strength
• Geographic Terms: Denver (Colorado)
• Subject Areas: Bridges and other structures; Design; Highways; Safety and Human Factors; I24: Design of Bridges and Retaining Walls;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 00982075
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: CDOT-DTD-R-2004-2,, Final Report
• Contract Numbers: 00HAA 00069
• Files: TRIS, USDOT, STATEDOT
• Created Date: Nov 1 2004 12:00AM